
FT MEADE 
GenCoI 1 




.X 




r 




^ * 




‘ r 

1 V 

V 


i9* 


• f* 


if •:4^>;- -■■ 





* li 




» • 


• •» % 


\ 


tf * y { 4 ^ 

> ?•,>- • ■ 


\i..7. 




/ . » ■ -V . 


:/ : . .... A ^ *,^>4 . ;• lA* - ' 

?. "'•>: ' ^':-‘ *“• s.' vV'' •■ ^ ■' •' I ; 

' •■ •'S'i'',J.M: .-V: 

' '.J- ‘. ' :• ■'■ / •,-,<■<■ 

• . • ' ' -'I J 7 , 


V4, 


1 . 




-•, -.^ V- 

-■, • *■■ ^:• f- A ^ 

* \ ’ ■ " •'• . . r ' JL- i~t ' V ■■ -■ . 




V 9 




# ' # 




» f 


1- f. ^ « j, 

^ 'r f 

CD, ’ > 


^ /' • 


i « 




-f 


■* r^‘ ''* . . i 


^ • ,.' 

' y 

Vi. 


( i 


/ . 
rtz* 


' •i'i.vws 


^VA ', 

r . ■ * 






.\ /. 



.(■f 




. ^ ' 


. . 


* « . f ; / .••V- I*”-' •' *> '■■• k>. ' •'. i 

,-• < I ;.'•>• . '•■ 

■'* - •• > ’ <» -■/ > 


-• '♦ •>. ' 

» .• • • . 


■ -• 
• ; ' I ^ 

' V < f 


**> 


* . • 


•■■.-• ■ ><x,- 

,, ,. , .V .-A..'- -J.' ' 

, A -..vA/ryV:. . 

'.A ■'■ ■ 




'• .? 


' ’■• .•'* 's " 'j 

' ' TT ' ’^ •■ ' fT 4 ‘ • 

'• '‘'^-vVv > '^T ''• 

■ ■ > ;• » ^ X. 'Vv 

* ' *■'* ■<' ' 

■•■U , , ,> ■ j, ... r-i 


"I- * ^ ■ '’'•y , 


* X 


•*/ 


L r* 

■ s *l'.' 


A 




i »- 


•'•‘At 




♦A, ', 


S'.. v‘ ' 


V:/ 


• c "I*' 

'. ^V. 

r * j * 4 : .«,. 


• • r 




V 


**. 




o 




•/ 




IV, 


. »• - 





» . ** 


.» # 


. , . • - ■ ■ . y . 

1 ■ * -K •■**.... 

* *- — . *^ • " r ^ .. • ■ ' . ■' * 

X V. *•* i!' ' •*' 1^ ^ ■* 

* ♦'••••»•. • * •>-._• 




fa 


n.: . 


--■j 


. f- 


**' r. 


^ PI I 

' '' '.* '’■ >* • '* - I - ^ -V'^' 

* ■’ ' j 'v* six' 'T'"' j.,.- ' .'ii V • ■ *r ^ 

; T'.'*,.',' - '• vv -y^ru -y-' -■ . .■"»•"■■ ■ ' ^ ' .V ■ 

(i 'A ■- .•<»'. 


'. ■• '?*''^-V, *v^ 

" - j- .'.^ v^*- 

y‘ . • > ^ 




!^i 




'' •^i-'-f A^-'4 * 


',i ’ 

f* 

n -4 I 


\ 


. > 
s 







. * 


VV • ' 

■•' -S * 

4 


a-** 


■ •• '• •* j 


^ : 




‘ ■ ^k:f* ,' 

- A’AyS.-, §ii%S ' . . ' 

► -v.:'!*? ' .4 .Tb ' ^,»x^ • V*, - • ._ 


! % 


<’■'. i’ 


1 / 




Ti 


'T >' 


’:V>- 





" v* ’ 


'f . " 


' , 

V A.S' . ■*. ; ■ •< 

.A . » 


W A» 


■' * • 


/* V 






‘ • 1 


•.A s 




‘ .r 


. ✓* 






f 

‘ ^ f 


o^y v.A ■': 




■O^C- 


' 1% k « « t ' y> 

> '! . 








* ■ 


" 7 4 • .W 




> 


* • 




/ 






f\ 


A / 



• V * 


/ I*' A'.'f 
V- '.A -V: 

. ' . ■ Y* .•' f ' t- 


.^/r •; 


. 9 ' 


' / 


•V I 




, 


' • ^ ' 


* ». 





’"i; •• ./ 


\!i'i 


■*/■> .‘u." 

• ^ ^ . 7 . 


y 

4 . 


4, 


^'v' 
'* i 


M • ■ 




. ^- 


■<i 


• \ 







'" -Vi.”jfe?,- •■; 4 - ■.".'rii,'- -■■ /.\: ' - ■■■•■•?^^^ 

,■ jfi ■: K- •'.- •.?.'<.i-',jr : ■> ' ■ P . . <■• . ./V?!!-'- . <- 





'*-* 1 
L- ' 
/ •** € 


I 


I 


. ♦ -n 




••‘.-< vV-:t 

* '■ - „.■ 

> 

.V! 


\* v* 




y 




•■•^ <i’'''**'?^‘^**-'?-'’i^ ,^r -l'' ^ 


r ' i • * » • • \ • 'v A . . ijf ' 

• "■ .' ’•' : 1- 5 ■- .‘i 


w; 




> . ’ f « 


« - '« 


' '» > ;• '• . N. • • , -^ -• V • 

u‘. . •■/j-V" ? ' /•*., . -r *' ■ f?:tx 


.>-* 1 : 


't 
' / 


•¥ 

■'k 


- 7 
\ 


r,. 

4 

- 

^ V- 


' 


Ll-'J 


PK'. 


► ^*1 
* ^tUi^ 



'\ 


, S' " 








■ *':iii' •• p 9^V ' ■■ - ‘'‘V-'..*-^' •■ ' ■ iAr?»Pf • y. - 

..'-t!-, ^‘•. '■ ^ r* ■&„.••• V- ' •►■■ • • •> '.‘^nV, Si'- • 1 

■*■ --* -r* ' 'V ■ '■- ^ -r'^'- ,• - ■* ' . “V^.^ 


mm 


‘Mjy/#:.',. :.; ■ o.' ■•>• .- ^. •VV.'vv*. .1 ■ ,Xrv 

' ■* • ' ” ' * *' . ^ ^ 'ft • ■' ft ^ * A * » ‘j ' ^ ■• < *'■ .4*JA 'h • *5 

‘ft.’ ' ■.,' V ^ ■ At . , *■ •', i ■ ‘ -1 -‘ ■ ■ ^ 1 • rw-V i 




'ri-- 




4 . 


, ',. > v y. .S . .•> V 

. -' y^\ ■;•■ «- 








X 


7^ 






■ v,. > T- ,3»:;^r.;^^ . ‘.^s •> ^':^■■l^y-^.■•- -vt, x: 






■H^iV -«ir '-' ' ' 


r 

• J • 


i ^ » 

. .4 * 


.*'^K 

- .T" • 




V,^' 


.. ' X.-AaVI 



: 'V- • ’ 'rr^ 

>r Pr; 


ft Li.**' v 

I’Vvjjiic rl'i 



VERONICA 


A NOVEL. 


BY THE AUTHOR OF 


'‘AUNT MARGARET’S TROUBLE,” “MABEL’S PROGRESS,” &c. 



HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1870. 



-v 

% 



VERONICA. 


BOOK I. 


CHAPTER 1. 

A NEW VICAR FOR SHIPLEY. 

The Church Intelligence announced one day, 
much to the fluttering of the village of Shipley, 
and also to the fluttering of some disappoint- 
ed hearts in clerical breasts, that the Reverend 
Chaides Levincourt was presented to the vacant 
living of Shipley-in-the-Wold. 

The Reverend Charles Levincourt was pre- 
sented to the living of Shipley-in-the-Wold by 
Sir William Delaney, to whose only son he had 
been tutor. 

Sir William had always expressed his sense of 
obligation to Mr. Levincourt for the unremitting 
and judicious care he had bestowed on his son 
James’s education. The young man was sickly 
in body and inert in mind ; nevertheless he had 
passed through his university career in a fairly 
creditable manner. This was mainly owing, as 
every one admitted, to his tutor’s talents and 
zeal. Therefore when the not very lucrative liv- 
ing of Shipley fell vacant, it was the most natural 
thing in the world that Sir William should bestow 
it on a gentleman for whose services he professed 
himself sincerely grateful. But neither Shipley- 
in-the-Wold nor the world out of the Wold by any 
means understood the mainspring of this sincere 
gratitude. 

James was the baronet’s only son, but Sir 
William was also the father of two daughters. 
While the elder of these young ladies — Hilda — 
was going through the gayeties of a London 
season (at the end of which she became Lady 
Tallis), Clara — a girl of seventeen — was quietly 
falling in love with her brother’s tutor in the 
country. 

The* Delaneys were Irish people. They lived 
chiefly at the place which bore their family 
name — an estate called Delaney Park in the 
South of Ireland. James passed the long va- 
cation at home, and Mr. Levincourt came with 
him. Clara was a delicate, shy, sweet-natured 
creature ; motherless, and more innocent of 
worldliness in her eighteenth year than many 
a precocious inmate of a Belgravian nurseiy. 

Charles Levincourt loved her better than he 
was destined ever to love another human being. 
But he “behaved admirably,” Sir William al- 
ways declared. 

How? Well, in a word, he went abroad with 
a rich minor to whose guardians Sir W’'illiam 
Delaney Avarmly recommended his son’s tutor. 

Before two years were over the family at De- 
laney Park learned that Mr. Levincourt was mar- 
ried in Italy, to a foreign lady of great beauty, 
but no fortune. 


Soon afterward Clara yielded to her father’s 
solicitations, and accepted the hand of Sidney 
Power Desmond, Esquire, of Desmond Court, 
County Cork : a gentleman of good family, 
whose estate adjoined her father’s. On his sec- 
ond daughter’s wedding morning. Sir William 
wrote to Charles Levincourt, promising him the 
next presentation, then likely to fall in very 
shortly, to the English living of Shipley-in-the- 
Wold. No one save her father knew that it was 
Clara who had asked and obtained this boon. 

But she had said to Sir William in her quiet 
sweet voice, “ Papa, James had a letter the oth- 
er day from Mr. Levincourt. He has not suc- 
ceeded in getting appointed to the foreign chap- 
laincy he was trying for. His wife has just had 
a little girl. I am afraid they are very poor. I 
wish you would promise him the next presenta- 
tion to Shipley. You could not do better. He 
is so clever and so learned, and — and he was very 
good to James, papa dear.” 

In this way the Reverend Charles Levincourt 
became vicar of Shipley-in-the-Wold. 


CHAPTER II. 

SHIPLEY VICARAGE. 

The small and obscure village of Shipley-in- 
the-Wold stands in one of the westernmost of 
the midland counties. 

Its name was given in days before the whole 
of that part of England had been marked by the 
plow and spade, like a page by the tracings of a 
pen. Generation after generation has left its 
sign-manual on the face of the land : each Avrit- 
ing the record of its labors in straight furrows on 
many a fertile field : furroAvs effaced and changed 
and reneAved, from season to season, and from 
age to age, as are the AvaA'ing ripples on a sea- 
side sand Avashed by the eternal tides. 

A stretch of furze-grown common is, perhaps, 
the only remnant of tliat characteristic aspect of 
the country Avhich gave Shipley its distinctiA’e ap- 
pellation. 

There are Avide, flat meadoAvs all round about 
it, where herds of cattle graze on the deiv-fed 
grass. The principal fanns in the immediate 
neighborhood of Shipley-in-the-Wold are graz- 
ing farms. All the land is flat and monotonous 
as far as the eye can see : save to the AvestAvard, 
Avhere the horizon line is broken by a range of 
loAv turf-covered hills, called by the inhabitants 
of those parts emphatically “ the Hills.” Behind 
“ the Hills” lies another Shipley ; Shipley Mag- 
na, a tiny market-tOAvn. 


c 


VERONICA. 


If it could be reached by a direct line cut 
through one swelling green mound, Shipley 
Magna would not be more than two or three 
miles distant from Shipley-in-the-Wold. But 
the road winds about and over the hills ; and 
it is six miles from the village to the town. 
Southward the landscape grows prettier and 
more smiling. There are trees, and there is 
arable land where, in summer, wide fields of 
sun-burnt grain wave, and rock, and change col- 
or in the breeze, as a face pales or flushes at a 
sudden whisper. 

But Shipley-in-the-Wold only beholds these 
things from afar. The stretch of furze-grown 
common already mentioned, and beyond that a 
considerable extent of oozy marshland separate 
it from the smiling southern country. 

In the winter season bleak winds sweep scy tbe- 
winged over Shipley ; the snow lies deep about 
it ; and often a single track of hoofs, and wheels, 
and feet may be traced in long black lines and 
uncouth dots, for miles across the otherwise un- 
broken whiteness of the level. 

The village straggles over a considerable extent 
of ground, but its houses are few and its popula- 
tion is scanty. There is nothing which can be 
called a main street belonging to it. 

The dwellings stand scattered irregularly ; here 
a cottage, and there a cottage, and each one is 
set within its own little patch of kitchen-garden. 

The place is remote from any great centre of 
commerce and activity. No railway passes near 
it. 

Twenty miles to the southward, among the 
trees and the corn-fields, lies the cathedral city 
of Danecester; with its bishop, and its dean, 
and its minster, and many other civilizing and 
excellent institutions. But Danecester is, after 
all, but a silent, sleepy, old-fashioned city ; and 
it wots little, and cares less, about poor little 
IShipley out on the bleak, wind-swept flats. 

There is a very ancient church in Shipley : a 
low-roofed, stone church with round arches, pil- 
lars of disproportionate thickness, and a square, 
squat tower. It has a deep porch, to enter which 
you descend two steps from the grave -yard. 
The laboring centuries have piled their dust 
high around the massive masonry of St. Gil- 
das’s church, and the level of the outside earth 
is considerably above that of the stone pavement 
within the little temple. 

The grave-yard is inclosed by a low wall, and 
its gateway is a relic of antiquity coeval with the 
church itself. The said gateway is of hewn stone, 
with a projecting pent-house roof, and beneath 
it on one side is a large stone slab, cracked, 
weather-stained, and half sunk into the earth. 
Here, in the old time, the coffin-bearers were 
wont to set down their burden, and a prelimin- 
ary prayer for the dead was said before entering 
the church-yard. 

There is no beauty in St. Gildas’s grave-yard. 
It lies defenseless and exposed to every wild 
v, northeasterly gale that sweeps over the flats. 
Its clustered mounds are turf-gi*own. Sheep 
graze there sometimes in summer. The few 
grave -stones, as yet undefaced by time and 
weather, bear humble names of yeomen and 
peasants, born, living, and dying at Shipley, 
genei'ation after generation. 

There are some rank flaunting marigolds grow- 
ing beside the porch, and a sickly-hued chrysan- 


themum raises its head to peer over the low rough 
wall of the grave-yard. Other growth, save net- 
tles, dock leaves, and dank, shadow-loving, name- 
less weeds, there is none. 

Hard by the church stands the vicarage house. 
It is a lonely dwelling. There is no habitation 
of any kind within a mile of it : none above the 
rank of a peasant’s cottage within two miles. 

Shipley vicarage is either not old enough or 
too old to be picturesque. It was built in the 
middle of what may be termed, emphatically, 
the ugly age ; the period, namely, during which 
the four Georges successively occupied the throne 
of these realms. It is a nearly square house of 
yellowish-brown brick. Its rooms are oblong 
and rectangular, its windows mean, its staircases 
narrow. There is no break or relief in the flat 
wall-surfaces, nor in the blank desert of the white- 
washed ceilings. 

Behind the house extends a large garden, the 
high wall of which skirts a by-lane branching 
from the main high-road to Shipley Magna. In 
front is a lawn, cut in two by a long, straight 
gravel path that leads from an iron wicket in the 
box hedge up to the hall-door. This lawn is 
only divided by a paddock from St. Gildas's 
church-yard. 

Two quivering poplars whisper to each other, 
and nod mysteriously from either side of the 
iron gate : and the windows of the lower rooms 
in the front of the house are darkened by clumps 
of evergreens, among which an old yew-tree rises 
gloomily conspicuous. 

The vicarage faces due south, and looks across 
the common and the marsh to where tufiy wood- 
lands break the level and hide the distant spires 
of Danecester. 

The Reverend Charles Levincourt, vicar of St. 
Gildas, arrived to take possession of his new home 
on a dreary day in the latter autumn, when the 
rain di'ipped sadly from the sombre evergreens, 
and low, lead-colored clouds were ^melting into 
slant showers over the common. 

“It is not a hopeful scene,” said he, as he 
looked about him and shivered. 

He afterward saw the scene under a countless 
variety of aspects ; but that first dispiriting im- 
pression of Shipley struck the key-note of the 
place, and became an abiding under-tone, sound- 
ing through all subsequent changes. 


CHAPTER III. 

A AVAItD. 

Mr. Levincourt had been established some 
years at Shipley, when one day he received a let- 
ter from the junior partner in a London firm of 
solicitors. Frost and Lovegrove, informing him 
that he (the Reverend Charles Levincourt, vicar 
of Shipley-in-the-Wold) had been appointed co- 
executor with the writer (Augustus Lovegrove) 
of the will of the late Mrs. Desmond, relict of 
Sidney Power Desmond, Esquire, formerly of 
Desmond Court, county Cork ; and further re- 
questing the vicar’s presence in town as soon as 
might be. 

Communication between the country clergy- 
man and the family of his old pupil had long 
since woni away and died out. The old pu])il 
himself had died, at five-and-twenty ; his sorrow- 


VERONICA. 


7 


ing father had not long survived him ; and this ' 
was the first intimation Charles Levincourt re- | 
ceived of the Avidowhood and death of his old ; 
love. 

lie journeyed without delay to London, and 
saw Mr, Lovegiwe. The latter informed him j 
that their joint responsibility, as regarded the ! 
administration of Mrs. Desmond’s will, would 
not be an onerous one : the property she had had 
to leave being very small. 

“But,” added the solicitor, “your share of 
the business will be more troublesome. Here 
is a letter which I solemnly promised our poor 
friend to deliver into your own hand. She in- | 
formed me of its main object. It is to request 
you to undertake the guardianship of her daugh- 
ter.” . 

*“ Her daughter?” 

“ Yes ; a nice little girl about nine years old. 
The only sundving child of a large family. But 
I thought you knew all the circumstances. You 
were one of Mrs. Desmond’s oldest friends, were 
you not ?” 

‘ ‘ I — I — yes ; I Avas a friend of Mrs, Des- 
mond’s family many years ago. But Time flies ! 
aAvay very fast, and many things fly Avith him. ' 
Was not ^Ir. Desmond Avealthy ? I had ahvays ' 
understood so.” 

“My dear Sir, Sidney PoAver Desmond ran ' 
through a fine fortune, and sent his paternal j 
acres to the hammer. I saAv a good deal of him, I 
and of her too, at one time, AA'hen I Avas profes- 
sionally engaged in ‘ Avinding up his Affairs,’ as 
he Avould persist in calling it. A tangled skein 
that refused to be Avound, I can tell you. Mrs. 
Desmond Avas a sAveet Avoman. She had a bad 
life of it, I’m afraid. Not that he treated her 
ill. He Avas fond of her, in his AAay. But he 
shook her children’s inheritance aAvay out of the 
dice-box, and then he died, several years later 
than he ought to have done for the Avelfare of his 
family. ” j 

The vicar declined Mi*. LovegroA’e’s proffered I 
hospitality, and Avent* back to his dingy hotel j 
chamber to read Clara’s letter in solitude. | 

The letter Avas short and simple. It appealed i 
to him, on the ground of old friendship, not to ' 
decline the trust imposed on him. 

“My husband’s relatiA’es,” thus it ran, “haA'e 
long been estranged from us. Papa and poor 
James are dead, and distant cousins Avho knoAV 
little and care less about me or mine, possess 
my old home. My sister. Lady Tallis, is child- 
less, and she Avould gladly adopt my little one, 
and Avould, I Avell knoAv, be tender and kind to 
the orphan. But her unhappy domestic circum- 
stances render this impossible. Neither, to say 
truth, is Hilda’s husband a man beneath Avhose 
roof I should like my daughter to be brought up, 
even Avere he willing to permit it. Hilda has 
her OAvn troubles. I mention these things, not 
in any spirit of bitterness, but simply that you 
may understand hoAV utterly friendless my Maud 
Avill be Avhen I am gone ; for I knoAV her help- 
lessness Avill appeal strongly to your kind heart.” 

The letter Avas commonplace and prosaic 
enough in form and expression ; but to Charles j 
Levincourt, sitting there Avith the sheet of folded ^ 
paper in his hand, and thinking of the dead avo- 
man he once loved so Avell, there Avas both pa- 
thos and eloquence in the sharply AA'ritten char- 
acters. He mused long and sadly on the events i 


of the past years that had so strangely resulted 
in giving Clara’s only survuving child to his care. 
But Avhatsoever reflections or regrets these mus- 
ings aAvakened in his mind he imparted to no 
one. 

The next day the vicar returned to Shipley, 
bringing Avith him a neAv inmate to the vicarage 
house. The little orphan Avas kindly received 
by the mistress of her neAV home. Mrs. LeA'in- 
court Avas an Italian by birth. Her mother had 
been an EnglishAvoman, her father a Neapolitan. 
She had lived abroad all her life until her mar- 
riage ; AAAS very uneducated, very frivolous, and 
very beautiful. She had perhaps as small a share 
of imagination as ever fell to the lot of a human 
being. The self-confidence arising from this to- 
tal inability to conceiA-e another person’s point 
of view, to imagine^ in short, hoAV others might 
feel or think, Avas a poAver Avhich carried her tri- 
umphantly OA’er many difficulties. She Avould 
reply to an argument or a remonstrance by some 
irrelev'ant platitude Avhich made her husband 
tingle Avith shame, but Avhich, to her apprehen- 
sion, AA'as entirely convincing. On the Avhole, 
hoAvever, she did her duty Avell (as far as she un- 
derstood it) by the little stray lamb brought into 
her fold. Gentle it aa'us not in Stella LeA'in- 
court’s nature to be, but she Avas kind and attent- 
ive to the child’s bodily requirements. Mrs. LeA’- 
incourt’s first impression of the little girl she con- 
fided to her husband on the night of Ris return 
from London. 

“I haA’e put her to bed in a crib in Veroni- 
ca’s room, Charles. She is a quiet, docile child 
enough. But oh, caro mio, Avhat a stolid little 
thing ! Just lost her mother, and as cool and 
as calm as possible ! ” 

The vicar remembered the child’s quivering 
lip, pale cheek, and anxious, yearning look into 
the strange faces that had surrounded her ; and 
he made ansAA’er, “Maud is quiet, but I think 
not stolid, my dear.” 

“She is English, English, English to the 
bone !” retorted Mrs. Levincourt, shrugging her 
graceful shoulders. “ Only figure to yourself if 
I Avere to die, Veronica — but then our darling is 
so sensith’e !” 

In Charles Levincourt’s mind there arose a 
vision of a SAveet, pale, girlish face, AA’hich he had 
last seen gazing after the coach that carried him 
aAvay from Delaney Park forever. And the 
vision, from some unexplained cause, stung him 
into the utterance of a sarcastic speech. He had 
long ago ceased to use sarcasm or irony habitu- 
ally in talking with his Avife. 

“I haA’e no doubt, my dear,” said he, “that 
if Veronica Avere suftering in mind or body she 
AA’ould take care that eA’ery one around her should 
suffer too.” 

“ That she AA'Ould, poA’erina !” exclaimed Stel- 
la, energetically. 

When little Maud Desmond came to live at 
the vicarage she AA'as nine years old, and Ve- 
ronica, the A’icar’s only child, AA as eleven. After 
a short time the tAvo little girls Avere sent to school 
at Danecester. Veronica had hitherto refused 
to go from home, and her refusal had sufficed to 
prevent her going. Her mother indulged her 
and AA'orshiped her Avith a blind devotion, Avhich 
Avas repaid (as such devotion often is) by a min- 
gling of fondness, disdain, and tyranny. 

But noAv that JMaud Avas to go to school Ve- 


8 ‘- 


VERONICA. 


ronica declared that she would accompany her ; 
and she did so. And between their home and 
the quiet Danecester school the two girls passed 
several years of their lives. 

During the long Midsummer holidays they 
rambled over the common at Shipley-in-the- 
Wold, or rode about the country lanes on a 
rough pony provided for their joint use. In the 
winter time they would steal into the kitchen of 
an evening, and coax old J oanna the cook to tell 
them some of her quaint country legends, or 
stories of ghosts and runaway marriages, and 
mysterious warnings, which were supposed to be 
the exclusive (and one would think unenviable) 
privileges of sundry ancient county families in 
whose service Joanna had lived. 

Or else they would sit in the gloaming at Mrs. 
Levincourt’s knee and listen to her tales of the 
brilliant life she had led in Florence, the gayety, 
the brightness, the company ! The balls at the 
Pitti and at the noble mansions of the Piinci- 
pessa della Scatola da Salsa and the dowager 
Countess Civetta, and the Russian lady, whose 
exact rank was not known, but who was sup- 
posed to be the wife of a hospodar. Only she 
and the hospodar did not agree, and so they lived 
apart ; and they met once a year in Paris, and 
were admirably polite to each other; and the 
hospodaress allowed the hospodar several mill- 
ions of rubles per annum to stay away from 
lier ; and she had a necklace of emeralds as big, 
very nearly, as pigeons’ eggs ; and she smoked 
the very fipest tobacco extant, and she was alto- 
gether a most charming person. 

These narratives, and many more, did Maud 
and Veronica greedily devour. Maud believed 
them with the same sort of good faith with which 
she threw herself into Aladdin, or the exquisite 
fancies of Undine. She was willing to accept 
the Russian lady, pigeons’-egg emeralds and all. 

Such people might exist — did, no doubt, but 
in a far-off way, altogether out of her sphere. 
She no more expected to meet such an individu- 
al hung with chains of barbaric splendor, and 
puffing forth clouds of incense from an amber 
pipe, than she anticipated the appearance of a 
geni twenty feet high, when she rubbed her little 
turquoise ring to keep it bright. 

Veronica, however, being two years older, and 
owning a different turn of mind, looked at mat- 
ters in a much more practical light. 

“And did you go to balls nearly every night, 
mamma ? And did you wear white dresses with 
short sleeves, and have flowers in your hair ? Oh, 
how beautiful you must have looked !” 

‘ ‘ I was never half so handsome as thou, tesoro 
mio,” the fond mother would reply. 

“When I am grown up I won’t stay at Ship- 
ley.” 

That was the burden of the song, the moral 
of the story, the issue of it all, for Veronica. 

On the whole the family at the vicarage led an 
isolated life, and the tone of thought and feeling 
that pervaded their home Avas very singularly at 
odds Avith the general notion of their neighbors 
as to Avhat AV'as becoming in the household of a 
clergyman. 

In the first place, Mr. LeA’incourt Avas entirely 
deA^oid of the least tincture of Avhat may, Avithout 
offense, be called professional parsonism. It is 
by no means asserted that he Avas altogether the 
better for having no such tincture. Men are 


naturally and legitimately influenced in their out- 
Avard bearing by the nature of their calling in 
life. The work which a man does heartily, earn- 
estly, and constantly, will most assuredly com- 
municate a certain bent to his mind, and even a 
certain aspect to his body. But the Avork Avhich 
a man does grudgingly, without thoroughness 
and faith, Avill be to him as irksome as an ill- 
fitting garment, and Avill, like such a garment, 
be laid aside and put out of sight altogether, 
whensoever its Avearer can get rid of it. 

People did not get intimate at the vicarage. 
The neighborhood AA'as but sparsely peopled with 
families of the rank of gentlefolks. Without the 
command of some vehicle, visiting Avas out of 
the question. 

At first Mrs. Levincourt had gone out rather 
frequently to formal dinner-parties at great dull 
country houses, and also to some country houses 
that were not dull. The hosts sent their car- 
riages for the Aucar and his Avife, if they liA’ed at 
a great distance from Shipley. Or a lumbering 
old chaise was hired from the CroAAm at Shipley 
Magna. 

But gradually such intercourse dropped. Mrs. 
Levincourt Avas not strong. Mrs. Le\nncourt did 
not care for dinner-parties. Mrs. Levincourt 
had her little gii'l to attend to. The fact Avas, 
that Stella liked society, and she AA'as by no 
means conscious of the surprise Avhich her say- 
ings and doings Avere apt to excite among the 
Daneshire magnates. But her husband Avas very 
thoroughly conscious of it. And, as the only 
kind of visiting they could have afforded him no 
amusement, their life became more and more se- 
cluded. 

When the tAvo girls were aged respectively 
seventeen and fifteen Mrs. Levincourt died, and 
then Veronica returned home to “ take -charge,” 
as they said, of her father’s house. 

Maud also came back to Shipley v'icarage, 
having “completed her education;” in other 
Avords, having learned all that they could teach 
her at the Danecester school. 

For tAvo years Veronica reigned mistress of 
her father’s household. Perhaps the burden of 
the song, Veronica being nineteen, had only so 
far changed as to run thus: “Noav that 1 am 
groAvn up, I Avon’t stay at Shipley. ” 

We shall see. 


CHAPTER IV. 

AN ACCIDENT. 

Some subtle influence — a sight, of sound, or 
smell — touched the long-draAvn links of associa- 
tion in the vicar’s mind as he stood at his OAvn 
door one February afternoon, and made him re- 
member that dreary autumn day on Avhich he 
had first seen Shipley. 

His thought flashed back along the jiast years, 
as the electric spark thrills through a long chain 
of clasping hands. 

“Poor Stella!” he said, half aloud. 

Mr. Levincourt was apt to spend a good deal 
of his aA'ailable store of compassion on himself. 
But there is no more effectual check to the in- 
dulgence of our oAvn failings and Aveaknesses 
than the exaggerated manifestation of the same 
defect in another. That which in us is only a 


VERONICA. 


*• 9 


reasonable and well-grounded dissatisfaction, be- 
comes mere selfish unjustifiable repining in our 
neighbors. 

8o long as his wife lived, therefore, Mr. Levin- 
court Avas shamed by her loud and frivolous com- 
plainings from expressing one-half the distaste 
he really felt for his life at Shipley-in-the-\Vold, 
although he had secretly deemed his wife far less 
entitled to pity than he was, whose qualities of 
mind and refinement of education enabled him 
to understand much better what he had lost in 
being thus buried alive at Shipley. 

But Stella Levincourt, born Barletti, slept in 
St. Gildas’s grave-yard, and a white tablet glim- 
mering out of the gloomiest corner in the dark 
little church bore an inscription to her memory. 
And since her death he had occasionally felt 
much retrospective sympathy with his wife. 

“Poor Stella!” he said again; and, shutting 
the door behind him, he walked down the gravel 
patliAvay, passed through the iron Avicket, crossed 
the paddock, and proceeded thus through St. 
Gildas’s church-yard tOAA'ard the A'illage. 

It Avas not a day to loiter in. It had snoAved 
a good deal the previous night, but since ten 
o’clock that morning a steady thaAv had set in. 
The roads Avere deep in mud, Avhose chill pene- 
trated the stoutest shoe-leather. An ice-cold 
dew seemed to exude from every thing one 
touched, and the sky spread a lead-colored cano- 
py from horizon to zenith. 

Mr. Levincourt made for the school-house. 
This Avas a bare lath-and-plaster building, erect- 
ed at the cost of the late vicar to serve as a Sun- 
day-school. The present incumbent, Avhile ad- 
hering to its founder’s first intention, had found 
an additional use for the AvhiteAvashed school- 
room. It served, namely, as a place for the 
choir of St. Gildas to practice in. 

Before Mr. Levincourt’s day the music at di- 
vine service in St. Gildas consisted solely of por- 
tions of Tate and Brady, baAvled or snuffled out 
in monotonous dissonance. Mr. Levin eourt’s re- 
fined and critical ear suffered many a shock from 
his congregation’s strenuously uplifted A'oices. 
He resolved to amend the singing, and flattered 
himself that he Avould find support and encour- 
agement in this undertaking. But folks Avere as 
loth to be amended in Shipley as in most other 
places ; and Mr. Levincourt’s first attempts to 
teach them harmony resulted in discord dire. 

By degrees he loAvered his pretensions. He 
had begun Avith high-flown ideas of foreign mass- 
music adapted to English Avords. Then, some 
of the simpler compositions of our English cathe- 
dral writers Avere attempted. At length he re- 
solved to be satisfied with Martin Luther’s Hymn, 
and Adeste Fideles, sung in parts. Things be- 
gan to go better. The younger generation, 
trained to some knowledge of music, became 
capable of succeeding in such modest attempts 
as these. Nor was it, indeed, from the younger 
generation that the great difficulties had arisen. 

Farmer Meggitt, and Farmer Sack, and other 
middle-aged farmers and graziers, could not be 
got to understand that it behooved them to be 
passive listeners to the music during service. 

“ What do ye mean then, by ‘Let us sing to 
the praise — ?’ Let m.s,” Farmer Meggitt said 
oos, “ sing ! Not ‘ let the little lads and Avenches 
in the organ-loft, sing to the praise!’ Parson 
Levincourt’s on a Avrong tack altogether. And 


as to his ncAv-fangled tunes — Avhy they’re Popish ; 
that’s Avhat they are : and I don’t care who hears 
me say so !” 

The implied slight to Farmer IVIeggitt's vocal 
abilities made him very Protestant indeed. And 
the charge of Popery against Mr. Levincourt aa us 
supposed to be a very colorable and serious one, 
seeing that he had a foreign AA’ife. 

However, Time Avent on in his task of turning 
‘ ‘ neAv-fangled” things into old-fangled. And the 
congregation of St. Gildas had long groAvn very 
proud of their singing. Miss Desmond had a 
class of village children to Avhom she taught 
some of the mysteries contained in the queer 
black-headed hieroglyphics on the musical staff; 
and the choir met to practice eA'ery Saturday aft- 
ernoon. And on this one special Saturday after- 
noon in February, Mr. Levincourt having floun- 
dered through the thick mud of the lane, arrived 
at the school-house door, turned the handle, and 
walked in, Avhen the practicing was just over. 

The children AA'ere making ready to troop out. 
Some of the little boys, uneasy under the stern 
glance of Mr. MugAVorthy, the parish clerk, still 
sat on the Avooden benches, from Avhich their 
corduroy-clad legs dangled and SAvung, as un- 
restingly as the pendulum of the big Avhite-fiAced 
clock that ticked away the hours aboA’e the door. 

At a little deal-cased harmonium sat Herbert 
SnoAve, the son of a rich Danecester banker. 
This young gentleman had been educated in 
Germany, Avhere he had caught a taste for mu- 
sic. His dilettanteism Avas strong enough to in- 
duce him to make the journey from Danecester 
nearly every Aveek, in order to supply, at the 
Saturday rehearsals, the place of the professional 
organist, Avho Avas only engaged to come to Ship- 
ley for the Sunday services. 

Not far from him stood Mr. PleAV, the A’illage 
doctor, talking to the vicar’s daughter. Mr. Plew 
had the meekest and AA'eakest of high tenor voices, 
and gave the choir the benefit of his assistance 
Avhenever his professional avocations Avould per- 
mit him to do so. 

Then there were Kitty and Cissy Meggitt, Avith 
their governess. Miss Turtle. Mrs. Meggitt Avas 
of an aspiring nature, and had prevailed on her 
husband to engage a “real lady” to teach her 
girls manners. Farmer Meggitt paid the “real 
lady” five-and-tAventy pounds per annum, and he 
thought in his heart that it Avas an exorbitantly 
high price for the article. 

Then there Avere Captain and Mrs. SheardoAvn, 
of LoAA’ater House. They did not sing ; but they 
had come to fetch their son. Master Bobby Shear- 
doAvn, Avho sat on a high school-bench among the 
“trebles.” 

Lastly, there was Maud Desmond. 

“ Good-eA'ening,” said the vicar, walking into 
the room. 

Immediately there Avas a shuffling and scrap- 
ing of feet. Every boy slid doAvn from his bench, 
and drew each one a hob-nailed boot noisily OA'er 
the bare floor in homage, raising at the same 
time a bunch of sun-burnt knuckles to his fore- 
head. The little girls ducked doAvn convulsive- 
ly, the smaller ones assisting themselves to rise 
again Avith an odd struggling movement of the 
elboAv. , 

This Avas the ceremony of salutation to a supe- 
rior among the rustic youth of Shipley. 

“lIoAv have you been getting on, Herbert?” 


10 


VERONICA. 


said Mr. Levincourt. “ ITow do you do, Mrs. 
Sheardown ? Captain, when I saw that the West 
Daneshire were to meet at Hammick, I scarcely 
expected to have the pleasure of seeing you this 
evening!” 

“No; I didn’t hunt to-day,” answered the 
captain. 

Captain Sheardown was a broad-shouldered 
man of some five-and-fifty years of age. Ilis 
blutf face was fringed with white whiskers, llis 
eyes were surrounded by a net-work of tine lines 
that looked as though they had been graven on the 
firm skin by an etching-needle, and he generally 
stood with his legs somewhat wide apart, as one 
Avho is balancing himself on an unsteady sur- 
face. 

The gentlemen gathered together into a knot 
by themselves while they waited for the ladies to 1 
put on their warm shawls and cloaks. 

‘ ‘ I wonder what sort of a run they had with 
the West Daneshire?” said Herbert iSnowe. 

“ I heard, Sir, as there were a accident on the 
field,” said Mr. Mugworthy, who had edged him- 
self near to the group of gentlemen. 

“ An accident!” repeated the vicar. “ What 
was it? Nothing serious, I trust?” 

“No, Sir; from w'hat I can reap out of the 
rumor of the boy. Sack, it warn’t a very serious 
accident. Jemmy Sack, he seen it. Sir. It hap- 
pened close up by his father’s farm. ” 

“Sack’s farm, eh?” said Captain Sheardown. 

“ Why that’s at Haymoor !” 

“Well, Sir, it is,” rejoined Mr. Mugworthy, 
after a moment’s pause, as though he had been 
casting about in his mind for some reasonable 
means of contradicting the statement, but find- 
ing none, was resolved to be candid, and make 
a clean breast of it. “ It is, Sir, at Haymoor, is 
Sack’s farm. 1 can’t say no otherways.” 

“Whew!” whistled the captain. “Who’d 
have thought of a fox out of the Hammick 
cover making for Haymoor! With the Avind 
as it is, too — and as it has been all day.” 

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Herbert SnoAve, 
whose foreign education had left him lamentably 
ignorant on certain matters of Avhich Captain 
SheardoAA’n conceived that an English gentle- 
man ought to knoAv a good deal. 

“Why shouldn’t he?” echoed the captain, 
scrcAving up his eyes and mouth into an ex- 
pression of comical vexation, and thereby deep- 
ening the finely-graA’^en lines before mentioned. 

“ Why shouldn’t he ? Bless my soul, Herbert ! 
Because a fox going from Hammick to Haymoor 
to-day must have run straight up Avind the Avhole 
time! That’s Avhy. Why shouldn’t he ? Tshah!” 

“ A dog-fox, bir,” put in MugAvorthy, solemn- 
ly, “ will sometimes run up Avind at this time of 
the year Avhen he’s agoing home. Sir.” 

“ Well, Avell,” said the vicar, with the slight- 
est possible air of contempt for the Avhole sub- 
ject : ^ AA’e Avill suppose that this AV'as a IlaA’moor 
fo.x, Avho had been A'isitinghis relations at Ham- 
mick. But about the accident. Mugworthy ?” 

“Jemmy Sack, he seen it. Sir. Come up 
here. Jemmy, and tell his reverence about the 
gentleman as Avas precipitated off of his horse 
alongside of the five-acre field.” 

Jemmy Sack, a lank lad of thirteen, came and 
stood before the vicar, and Avith many Avrithings, 
and in agonies of bashfulness, delivered himself 
of his story. 


The story simply amounted to his having seen 
a gentleman flung from his horse Avith a good 
deal of violence. The others had ridden on, 
either not seeing or not heeding. After a while 
the gentleman’s servant had galloped up to his 
assistance. The gentleman had risen and mount- 
ed again : but not the same horse. He took the 
beast that his serv’ant had been riding, and sent 
the groom aAvay Avith the animal that had throAvn 
him. The gentlemen had then ridden after the 
rest of the hunt toward Upper Haymoor. 

“ Ah ! Well, there Avas not much harm done, 
I’m happy to find. If the gentleman Avent on 
folloAving the hounds he could not have been 
much hurt,” said the vicar. “You didn’t knoAV 
the gentleman by sight. Jemmy, did you?” 

Jemmy did not knoAv the gentleman’s name ; 

1 but he knowed that he AA-as a-staying at the CroAvn 
Inn, Shipley Magna, and that he had four horses 
in the stables there, and that the people said as 
he was a friend of Lord George SegraA'e’s, him 
as had taken Hammick Lodge for the hunting 
season. And Jemmy, becoming accustomed to 
the sound of his OAvn voice addressing gentle- 
folks, and finding himself listened to, began to 
groAV loquacious and to volunteer his opinion 
that the gentleman had a-got a oogly spill, for 
he turned Avelly green and seemed all queer in 
his head like. But he Avas a good plucked ’un, 
for he Avould go on a-horseback again, and he 
(Jemmy) had run nigh enough to hear him 
a-cussin’ and a-SAvearin’ at the groom like foon. 

In fact, so loquacious and graphic in his nar- 
ratiA’e did Jemmy become that Mugworthy per- 
emptorily ordered him to hold his tongue and be- 
gone Avith the other lads. 

The boys shuffled out, glad to be released, and 
Avere presently heard Avhooping doAvn the lane 
after the manner of their kind. 


CHAPTER V. 

AN INVOLUNTARY GUEST. 

By this time Mrs. SheardoAvn had enveloped 
herself and Bobb}^ in Avater- proof Avrappings. 
Maud Desmond Avas waiting, Avarmly protected 
by a thick shaAvl, at the vicar’s elboAv. Herbert 
SnoAve shut and locked the harmonium. Every 
one Avas preparing to depart. 

“Veronica!” called the vicar. 

Miss Levincourt Avas still conversing Avith Mr. 
PleAv. 

“Veronica!” repeated her father, impatient- 
ly, “are you not coming?” 

She turned round at the summons, giving her 
hand in a farewell grasp to the doctor as she did 
so. 

She AA’as A’ery handsome. 

The first thing that struck you on looking at 
her face Avas its vivid coloring. Her skin Avas 
of a clear, pale, brown tint ; and on each smooth 
cheek there gloAved a rich blush like the heart 
of a J line rose. She had large, dark eyes, fringed 
round Avith thick lashes, and surmounted by semi- 
circular eyebroAvs, black as ebony. Her hair 
Avas also black, shining, and very abundant. It 
Avas disposed in elaborate coils and plaits, Avhich 
displayed its luxuriance to the full, and aars 
brought down Ioav on the forehead in crisp Avaves. 
Her lips Avere very red and her teeth very Avhite. 


VERONICA. 


11 


There were defects in the form of her face. But 
the brilliant eyes, glancing under their arched 
brows, so attracted attention to themselves that 
few observers were dispassionately critical enough 
to observe that the lower part of the face over- 
balanced the upper ; that the nose was insignifi- 
cant ; the mouth so full as to be almost coarse ; 
and the cheeks and chin so rounded as to threat- 
en to lose all comeliness of outline, and to be- 
come heavy in middle life. Now, however, at 
nineteen years of age, Veronica Levincourt was 
a very beautiful creature. But there was some- 
thing in her face which was not so easily ana- 
lyzed by a casual observer as the form and color 
of it. There was a dissonance in it somewhere, 
^lost women perceived this. Many men did so 
also. But they perceived it as a ])erson with a 
good ear, but ignorant of harmony, perceives a 
false note in a chord. Something jars : what he 
knows not. The skilled musician comes and 
puts his finger on the dissonant note. 

When Veronica laughed her whole countenance 
grew harmonious at once. And herein lay the 
key to the puzzle. 

The habitual expression of her face in repose 
seemed to contradict the brilliant glow of youth 
and health which made her so strikingly beauti- 
ful. The rich gipsy color, the ripe red lips, the 
sparkling eyes, the gleaming teeth, seemed made 
to tell of light-hearted, abounding, girlish happi- 
ness. But the expression of Veronica's face 
when she let it fall into its habitual lines was 
wistful, sad, sometimes almost sullen. 

For the rest, her figure was slight and straight, 
and she carried herself with an erect and yet 
easy grace. 

“ Coming, papa,” said she, carelessly. And 
then she gathered about her shoulders a scarlet 
cloak with a hood to it. 

“ You should have had your shepherd’s plaid, 
Veronica,” said her father." ‘ ‘ That red thing is 
not nearly warm enough for such an evening as 
this.” 

“Oh, it is so becoming to Miss Levincourt,” 
said little Miss Turtle, the governess. She 
and her pupils had been watching Veronica un- 
winkingly all the afternoon, as their custom 
was. 

The choir of St. Gildas dispersed. The Shear- 
downs drove away in their little pony-carriage, 
carrying with them Herbert Snowe, who usually 
staid with them on Saturday evenings. Miss 
Turtle took her pupils, one on each arm, and 
her gray cloak and shabby hat with its black 
feather disappeared down the lane. The vicar, 
with his ward and his daughter, walked in the 
oi)posite direction toward their home. 

Tlie nearest way to the vicarage-house was 
across St. Gildas’s church-yard. But the melt- 
ed snow lay in death-cold jiools between the 
swelling grave-mounds ; and although the lanes 
attbrded no good walking in the present state of 
the weather, they were yet rather better than the 
way by the church-yard. 

5lention has been made of a by-road through 
the village from Shipley Magna which skirted 
the garden wall of the vicarage. Mr. Levincourt 
and the two girls had not gone many paces down 
this by-road when they perceived through the 
fast-gathering dusk a figure, which had evidently 
been on the watch for them, start and run toward 
them very swiftly. 


“I do believe it is Jemmy Sack!” exclaimed 
Maud Desmond. 

Jemmy Sack it was, who presently came to a 
sudden stop in front of the vicar, and began a 
breathless and incoherent speech. 

“Dunnot ye be frighted, please. Sir, Joe Dow- 
sett says. They ha’n’t a took him into the house, 
please. Sir. And it’s the same un as I seed tum- 
ble off afore. On’y this here time he’s in a reg- 
’lar swound like. But Joe Dowsett says as ye 
bain’t to be frighted, nor yet the young ladies 
nayther, please Sir.” 

Long before the combined cross-examination 
of the vicar and the young ladies had succeeded 
in eliciting any explicit statement from Jemmy, 
they arrived at the garden door, and then the 
matter to a certain extent explained itself. 

A man in a scarlet hunting coat thickly crust- 
ed with mud lay on his back in the road beneath 
the garden wall, and close by a heap of flint 
stones piled up for the use of the road-mend- 
ers. On to these he, had apparently been flung, 
for his face was cut, and a thin stream of blood 
trickled slowly down his forehea^. 

The prostrate man was totally insensible. His 
head was supported on the knee of Joe Dowsett, 
the vicar’s gardener, groom, and general facto- 
tum, who was endeavoring to pour some brandy 
down his throat. A carter, in a smock-frock, 
held a handsome horse by the bridle. Three of 
the village boys who had been practicing in the 
school-room stood at a little distance looking on, 
and two frightened women-servants, with their 
aprons huddled rojind their shivering shoulders, 
peeped nervously from the garden door, and plied 
Joe Dowsett witli shrill questions, of which he 
took no notice whatever. 

A clamor of voices arose as soon as the vicar 
was perceived : but a few words will suffice to 
put the reader in possession of the facts of the 
case. The fallen man was the same gentleman 
whom Jemmy had seen thrown earlier in the 
day. The day’s sport had terminated at a con- 
siderable distance from Shipley Magna. The 
gentleman was a stranger, had probably missed 
his Avay, and gone by roundabout roads. He 
had evidently at last been making for Shipley 
Magna, having struck into Bassett’s Lane, as 
the by-road was called. His horse and he were 
both tired out, and he had begun to feel the ef- 
fects of his first fall more severely than he had 
felt them in the heat of the chase and at the be- 
ginning of the day. The carter had perceived 
the gentleman’s horse stumble, and at the same 
instant the boys returning from the school-house 
had appeared shouting and whooping at the end 
of the lane. In a moment the gentleman had 
been pitched heavily off his horse, and had fallen 
on the heap of flint stones. The carter couldn’t 
say for sure, but he believed that the horse stum- 
bled before the lads startled him. And now 
what was to be done? This question was ]uit 
by Joe Dowsett, looking up at his master with 
the brandy bottle in his hand. 

The first thing to be done was to send for a 
doctor. Mr. Blew would probably not have 
reached his own home yet. Jemmy Sack was 
dispatched to fetch him, and set off running at a 
fiimous rate, throwing out his long legs, and fol- 
lowed by the other boys, to all of whom the oc- 
casion seemed to be one of intense and concen- 
I trated ecstasy. 


12 


VERONICA. 


But pending Mr. Flew s arrival, the swooning 
man could not lie thei’o, with the night falling 
fiist, and a bitter wind blowing from the marshes, 
that was fit, Joe Dowsett said, to freeze the very 
marrow in your bones. 

There w as no other house at hand. The vic- 
arage was a lonely, isolated dw'elling. J oe Dow- 
sett and the carter, with a little assistance from 
Mr. Levincourt, carried the stranger into the 
house. The women hurried to take from an 
old oaken press blankets and coverlets for the 
spare bed. A fire was lighted in the guest’s 
chamber — a room on the ground-floor, looking 
toward the garden. For that night, at least, the 
injured man must remain at the vicarage. 

Mr. Levincourt w'as very uneasy, and asked 
Joe over and over again if he thought it was se- 
rious. To wFich queries Joe invariably replied 
that it might be or it mightn’t, but that for his 
part he didn’t think ’t wouldn’t be much : an 
oracular utterance in which his master seemed 
to find some comfort. Veronica sat at the win- 
dow, straining eye and ear to catch the first sig- 
nal of the doctor’s coming. 

‘ ‘ He’s quite old, this poor man, isn’t he, papa ?” 
said she, with her face pressed against the 
glass. 

“Old? No. What do you call ‘quite old?’ 
It is difficult to judge under the circumstances, 
but I should say he can’t be more than fifty. ” 

“Ah! well — that’s what I meant. Here is 
Mr. Flew' at last ! I hear his step on the gravel, 
although I can’t see him yet. ” 

Mr. Flew’s opinion was not very reassuring. 
If the patient w'ere not better by to-morrow', he 
should fear that he could not safely be moved for 
a day or tw'O. JMeanw'hile Mr. Flew would like 
Dr. Gunnery, of Danecester, to be called in, in 
consultation. 

When Dr. Gunnery arrived on the following 
afternoon he shook his head very gravely, and 
said that he had no hope of the patient being 
able to leave his bed for some weeks. Even if — 
and here Dr. Gunnery lowered his voice, and 
reversed the movement of his head : nodding it 
n]) and dowm instead of shaking it from side to 
side — even if he pulled through at all I 


CHAFTER VI. 

• SUSPENSE. 

The vicar’s first thought on hearing Dr. Gun- 
nery’s opinion was that it behooved him (the 
vicar) to communicate with the family of the 
stranger whom Fate had thrown literally 
throw'll— into the midst of the quiet household 
at the vicarage. As it was, they could hardly 
have known less about him had he dropped 
among them from the moon, instead of from the 
back of a startled horse. 

But for many hours the injured man was in- 
capable of communicating with his host. Fever 
set in. He became delirious at intervals. And 
on no account must he be disturbed or annoyed 
by questions. Dr. Gunnery confirmed Mr. Flew’s 
first statement, that no irreparable injury had been 
done to the stranger by his fall. 

“ But,” said he, “ he is a bad subject. If w'e 
had a young constitution, or even a sound con- 
stitution for his years, to deal with the Avhole 


affair w'ould be a mere trifle. But in this case 
it is very different. ” 

“Very different, indeed,” assented ]\Ir. Flew'. 

“ No stamina,” continued the Danecester phy- 
sician. “The w'hole machine is in a Avorn-out 
condition — constitution gone to the deuce.” 

“To the — ahem! quite so!” assented Mr. 
Flew, again. 

“Then, Dr. Gunnery,” said Mr. Levincourt, 
nervously, “do you mean to say that he is in 
danger? Dear me, this is dreadful! Really 
dreadful !” 

But to so direct a question Dr. Gunnery could, 
or w'ould, give no direct reply. He merely re- 
peated that, in his opinion, Mr. Levincourt ought 
to lose no time in communicating ivith the sick 
man’s family. And then, saying that he w'ould 
return the day after to-morrow, and that mean- 
w'hile the patient could not possibly be in better 
hands than those of JMr. Flew, the great Dane- 
cester doctor drove away. 

Beyond the facts that had come under his 
own eyes, the vicar knew but two circumstances 
regarding his involuntary guest. The first cir- 
cumstance Avas that he had been staying at the 
CroAvn, in Shipley Magna ; the second AA’as that 
Lord George Segrave Avas said to be a friend of 
his. 

IMr. Levincourt dispatched a note to Lord 
George, and ordered Joe DoAvsett (to Avhom the 
note Avas intrusted) to ride on from Hammick 
Lodge to Shipley IMagna, and tell the people at' 
the CroAvn Avhat had happened. 

From Hammick Lodge, Joe DoAvsett brought 
back a very polite note. 

It appeared that the acquaintance betAveen 
Lord George Segrave and the stranger Avas of 
the slightest possible kind. They had met in 
Rome one season, and had hunted side by side 
on the Campagna. Lord George kneAv nothing 
Avhatever of the gentleman’s family. His name 
was Gale, Sir John Gale. Lord George Avas 
deeply distressed that the vicar of Shipley and 
his family should be so seriously inconvenienced 
by this accident. At the same time he could 
hardly regret, on Sir John Gale’s account, that 
the latter should have fallen into such hands. 
Lord George Avould do himself the honor of 
calling at Shipley vicarage, and, meanAvhile, he 
begged to knoAv if there Avere any AA'ay in Avhich 
he could be of service, either to Mr. Levincourt 
or to the invalid, under these painful circum- 
stances. 

This note, although extremely civil, left mat- 
ters pretty much as they had been before. But 
from the CroAvn Inn Joe DoAvsett brought back 
something more tangible and unexpected. 

He brought back, that is to say. Sir John 
Gale’s foreign servant, Avho announced himself 
as “Faul,” and Avho immediately took upon 
himself all the duties of Avaiting^n the sick man. 

“If you Avill permit. Sir,” said Faul, in very 
good English, “I Avill have a mattress laid by 
the side of my master’s bed for a few nights. 
When Sir John gets better, and needs not to 
haA'e me all night, I shall find to sleep at the 
village. There is a small cabaret there, as I 
have informed myself.” 

The arrival of tliis man, Avhich AA'as at first 
looked upon AA'ith dismay by the inmates of the 
vicarage, proA’ed before long to be an inestima- 
ble comfort and relief. 


VEllONICA. 


In the first place, he eased the vicar’s mind 
by taking upon liimself the responsibility of com- 
municating with Sir John’s friends. Or rather 
he proved that no such responsibility existed. 
Sir John had, Paul declared, no relatives. He 
had neither wife nor child, brother nor sister, 
uncle nor cousin. He had lived a good deal 
abroad. Paul had not been with Sir John in 
England before this winter. He' would write to 
Sir John’s agent and man of business. That 
was all that would be necessary'. 

jMr. Levincourt, never unwilling to shift re- 
sponsibility on to the shoulders of others, told 
Paul that he must do as he thought best. There 
was something in the grave, steady aspect of the 
little man that inspired confidence. Then Paul 
took upon himself the whole business of the 
sick-room. He waited by day, and watched by 
night. He administered the medicines. He re- 
ported progress to the doctars with an intelli- 
gence and accuracy which won those gentlemen’s 
good opinion very soon. He relieved the vicar’s 
servants of all trouble as regarded Sir John 
Gale. He even went into the kitchen, and, with 
a certain gi'ave tact which characterized him, 
won over old Joanna to allow him to prepare 
sundry articles of invalid diet for his master. 
He was always at hand when wanted, and yet 
entirely unobtrusive. He was never tired, nev- 
er sleepy, never sulky, never indiscreet. 

In a word, before many days of his sojourn at 
the vicarage had passed over, the whole house- 
hold began to wonder how they had managed 
to get through the few hours that had inter- 
vened between the accident and the arrival of 
the admirable Paul. 

He very soon contrived to let it be understood 
that money expenses would not at all events be 
added to the burden thrown on the vicar’s fam- 
ily by his master’s accident and illness. Sir 
John was rich : very rich. No expense need be 
spared. If, even, it were deemed necessary to 
send to London for additional medical assist- 
ance, they need not hesitate to do so. This, 
however, did not appear to be desirable. And 
as soon as Sir John was enabled to understand 
his own condition he expressed himself entirely 
satisfied with the skill and care of the doctors 
who were attending him. 

Lord Geoi’ge Segrave fulfilled his promise of 
calling. Lord George was a bachelor. He was 
a great sportsman, and some folks said that he 
was too fond of other pursuits which persons 
holding strict views could not approve. Lord 
George was well known on the turf ; and in his 
youthful days had been a patron of the Prize 
Ping. Without belonging to the category of 
those whose lives were openly scandalous, he yet 
was a man whose acquaintance could by no 
means be taken to be a certificate of good char- 
acter. 

Petired as was j\Ir. Levincourt’s life at Ship- 
ley-in-the-Wold, he yet knew this much of the 
jiresent occupant of Hammick Lodge, and the 
knowledge had not served to make Sir John 
Gale’s enforced presence beneath his own roof 
the more agreeable to him. 

But Lord George Segrave soon made it ap- 
parent that his acquaintance with Sir John was 
really and truly no closer than he had stated in 
his note. It need scarcely be said that Lord 
George had no idea what a signal service he 


1 ^ 
io 

was rendering to the invalid in his host's opin- 
ion by disclaiming any thing like intimacy with 
the former. 

Lord George was rather good-natured, and 
extremely selfish, and he desired that it should 
be at once clearly understood that, while he was 
willing to send his servants scouring the country 
on any errand for Sir John that the vicar might 
suggest, he (Lord George) by no means intend- 
ed to put himself to the personal inconvenience 
of making frequent visits of inquiry at the vicar- 
age. 

“Pray, command me, Mr. Levincourt,” he 
said, as he took his leave, “in any way. I quite 
feel what an uncommon bore this business must 
be for you. Though, as I said before. Gale may 
think himself in luck that he didn’t get spilt on 
any other heap of flint stones than the one at 
your door. I’m sure I hope he’ll pull through, 
and all that sort of thing. You know I had only 
just a kind of bowing acquaintance with him in 
Rome. And then he hailed me on the hunting- 
field at Stubbs’s Corner the other day, you know, 
and — and that sort of thing. Hammick Lodge 
is twelve miles from Shipley as the crow flies, 
you know, and — and so I’m afraid I sha’n’t be 
able to look him up myself very often, you know. 
But I hope you will do me the favor to command 
me if there’s any thing in the world my fellows 
can do, or — or that sort of thing.” 

And then Lord George Segrave departed, feel- 
ing that he had done all that could reasonably be 
expected of him. 

Dr. Gunnery came again and again. And IMr. 
Plew was unremitting in his attentions. 

The house, always quiet, was now hushed into 
stillness. The piano remained closed. Joe Dow- 
sett ceased to whistle as he worked in the garden. 
The seiwants stole up to bed past the door of the 
guest-room, making every board of the staircase 
creak under their elaborately cautious footfall. 
Paul’s noiseless step glided through the passages, 
and he came on you like a ghost. 

Piot and* merriment are contagious. So are 
silence and the hush of suspense. But though 
the vicarage was stiller than it was wont to be, 
it was less dull. All the household was conscious 
of a suppressed excitement, which was merely 
stirring, and did not reach to pain. Every day, 
every hour of the day, presented a question whose 
answer Avas deferred — Will he live or die ? And 
on the answer to this question hung no agonized 
human heart — none, at least, within that house. 

Was there any where a breast fluttered by 
hopes, oppressed by fears, for the sick man who 
lay feverish and uneasy on the stranger’s bed in 
Shipley vicarage? 

No letters came for him. No friends inquired. 

He was discussed in the vicarage kitchen, and 
in other kitchens in the neighborhood. He was 
discussed in the Aullage ale-house, in the farm- 
houses, in the tap-room and the stables of the 
Crown at Shipley Magna. He Avas spoken of, 
once or twice, at the different meets of the West 
Daneshire hunt. Lord George Segrave men- 
tioned that he believed Gale Avas going on all 
right, you knoAV, and that sort of thing. That 
Avas a niceish nag of his, not the one he had 
been riding Avhen he aa’us throAA’n, you knoAV ; no, 
that little chestnut. Lord George Avouldn’t mind 
having him. He AA'ondered Avhat the figure Avould 
be. If Gale’s horses Avere still at the CroAvii he 


14 


VERONICA. 


liad a good mind to go over and have another 
look at the chestnut, and to ask Gale’s groom 
whether he thought his master would sell him. 
He supposed that Gale had had enough of hunt- 
ing in England. He was dooced sorry for him, 
you know, and that sort of thing, but what the 

could he expect ? With that seat he (Lord 

George) only wondered how Gale had been able 
to stick on his saddle five minutes ! And most 
of the field wondered too. For it has been ob- 
served that of all the trials to Avhich human can- 
dor, modesty, and magnanimity are ordinarily 
apt to be subjected, the trial of comparing your 
own riding with another man’s is the one that 
most frequently develops mortal frailty. 

There was probably not a man who habitually 
hunted with the West Daneshire who did not se- 
cretly nourish the conviction that his own seat 
on horseback was admirable, and that the ma- 
jority of his friends and acquaintances rode like 
tailors ! 

Little it mattered to Sir John Gale what was 
said of him in parlor, kitchen, stable, or hunt- 
ing-field. Little, perhaps, would it ever matter 
to him. more. For although, as Dr. Gunnery 
had said, the absolute injuiies resulting from 
the accident were trifling, and to a young and 
vigorous constitution would have been matters 
of small importance, yet in this case there seem- 
ed to be no elasticity or power of rebound in the 
sick man’s frame. A low fever took hold of 
him: a dreadful insidious fever, that might be 
figured as a weird phantom, invisible to the eyes 
of men, but with two bony, cruel hands, whose 
touch was terrible. Of these hands one was 
cold as ice ; the other burning, like the heart of a 
furnace. Alternately the viewless fingers stroked 
the sick man’s body, drawing long shuddering 
thrills through every limb, or clutched him with 
a lingering gripe that made his very heart sick. 
Now he was consumed with scorching heat ; 
anon he shivered to the marrow of his bones. 

Mr. Flew did not trouble his brain — or per- 
haps it were better to say his brain was not trou- 
bled ; seeing that such fancies come to a man, 
or stay away from him, wdthout any conscious 
exercise of his will — with any fantastic embodi- 
ment of a Fever Phantom. But he reported day 
after day that Sir John was in a nasty low way 
— a ve-r\j na-asty^ low way — and that he couldn’t 
get him to rally. 

“Do you think he is troubled in his mind?” 
asked Mr. Levincourt. “ Is his heart ill at ease ? 
He is perfectly conscious now; and, I think, 
clear-headed enough to give orders. And yet 
Paul tells me that his master has entirely ap- 
proved what has been done, and what has been 
left undone. He desires to see no one ; has re- 
ceived no letters— except, as Paul tells me, one 
from his agent sent to the Post-office at Shipley 
jMagna— and, in short, appears to be singularly 
isolated in the world, for a man of his Avealth 
and position. I should fear his life has not been 
a very happy one.” 

“Well,” said Mr. Plew, musingly, “I don’t 
know, of course. But— but he doesn’t seem to 
me to be at all that sort of man.” 

Mr. Plew’s statement was vague enough ; and 
the vicar did not care to be at the pains of prob- 
ing the little surgeon’s meaning. Yet the latter 
had a meaning, although he would have found it 
difficult to put it into clear words. 


His meaning was this ; that from his observa- 
tion of Sir John Gale he had, half-instinctively, 
drawn the conclusion that his rich patient was 
not a man to allow sentimental troubles to prey 
on him. 

Wounded love, tender regrets, affectionate 
yearnings after a lost friendship, or a longing for 
softer tendance and closer companionship than 
could be had from servants and strangers, did 
not seem to Mr. Plew likely to enter into the 
category of drawbacks to Sir J ohn’s recovery. 

Material comforts, nay luxuries, he did not 
lack. As to sentiment — Mr. Plew of course had 
encountered ailments arising from purely .spirit- 
ual causes. Very troublesome ailments they 
were, and very inefficacious proved the power 
of physic to cure them. He remembered a say- 
ing of an old clergyman who had been a famous 
preacher in the days Avhen Benjamin Plew was 
walking the hospitals in London. The saying 
was to the effect that the bodily health of half 
the world would be manelously improved if a 
mechanical, cunningly contrived piece of granite 
could be substituted for a heart of flesh in the 
human breast. “We might defy the doctors 
then,” said this old clergyman, “and — life would 
not be worth having !” But of Sir John Gale, 
neither Mr. Plew nor the reader as yet knows 
enough to enable him to judge whether the bar- 
onet’s heart be of flesh or of stone. 

A fortnight passed ; three weeks ; a month 
had nearly dragged itself away since the accident, 
when the doctors pronounced that Sir John was 
somewhat stronger. 

The phantom hands, the hand of fire and the 
hand of ice, slowly relinquislied their prey. By 
degrees the intervals between their alternate 
touches grew wider'. At last they ceased. Dan- 
ger w'as over ; and from the beginning of March 
the invalid began slowly, but surely, to mend. 


CHAPTER VIE 

MR. PLEW. 

At Shipley-in-the-Wold people dined at two 
o’clock, and took tea at six or seven. “Tea- 
time” was the vicar’s favorite hour of the twen- 
ty-four, especially in the winter season. The 
work of the day was over. The fii'e blazed up 
companionably, and filled the pauses of conver- 
sation with light and warmth. And if a forlorn 
wind went moaning without upon the “gloom- 
ing flats,” its voice only heightened, by imagined 
contrast, the comforts of the ingle nook. 

The family sitting-room — named in Daneshii'e 
parlance, the parlor — was no exception to the 
assertion that Shipley vicarage was an uglv 
house. Yet even here the magic of the leaping 
flame and glowing coals worked wonders. It 
sent flickering shadows to play over the bare 
ceiling ; it made the glass panes of a tall book- 
case sparkle with flashing rubies ; it found out 
every gleam of gilding on the tarnished bindings 
of the well-worn books ; it mellowed the hue of 
the faded crimson window-curtains, subdued the 
staring pattern of the wall-paper, and made the 
old-fashioned chintz covering on the furniture 
seem rich and harmonious as an Indian car- 
pet. 

“Give me another cup of tea, Veronica,” said 


VERONICA. 


the vicar, sitting in the parlor on a drear jMarch I 
evening. 

His daughter and his ward were both with 
him. On each of the three faces there was, for 
once, a look of cheerfulness. That morning 
their guest had been pronounced out of danger. 
The shadow which had darkened the house was 
passing away. 

“ Give me another cup of tea,” said the vicar 
once more, rubbing his hands together. And 
then he pursued the discourse which his demand 
had interrupted. “ Yes ; and I assure you I am 
very much pleased with Sir John altogether. 
Nothing could be better chosen than his man- 
ner of expressing himself. ” 

‘ ‘ What did he say, papa ?” 

“ Oh, well ! I can not recollect word for word. 
Thanks, of course, and gratitude, and — and so 
on. But not overdone. Very earnest and gen- 
tlemanlike. He appears to be a man of the 
world, yet not exactly worldly. He has, in short, 
I should say, a great deal of savoir vivre.” 

“Savoir vivre!” repeated Maud, musingly. 
“That would be an art to learn ; how to live !” 

“ The quintessence of all arts, Maudie.” 

“ Yes ; and it would include — would it not ? — 
how to die ; if one did but consider aright. ” 

“Maud!” cried Veronica, with a little shud- 
der, “ I do beg of you not to be solemn. Don’t 
talk of such things. It makes me cold. Y"ou 
are worse than a northeast wind blowing over 
the snow-drifts.” 

Veronica inherited from her mother a more 
tlian childish horror of death. The slightest al- 
lusion to it sufficed to cloud her bright face and 
make her irritable. 

‘ ‘ Well,” answered Maud, quietly. “ Sir John 
Gale is not going to die just yet, they say, so 
there is no need to be solemn, as you call it. It 
is to be hoped he will give up hunting, or learn 
to get a better seat on horseback. Joe Dowsett 
says that that hunter of his is as gentle as a lamb, 
and has such a mouth that a baby might ride 
him. And yet Sir John could not contrive to 
stick on his back.” 

“That’s not quite fair, Maud,” observed the 
vicar. “When Sir Jolin was thrown opposite 
the garden gate he was in a half-fainting con- 
dition, you must remember. But it was not then 
that the mischief was done. It was an ugly fall 
he got earlier in the day from a fresh, hot-tem- 
pered beast. He changed horses afterward, and 
persisted in continuing to ‘ assault the chase,’ as 
Mugworthy says. So I do not think we are just- 
ified in concluding any thing to the disadvantage 
of his horsemanship. ” 

“But don’t you know, papa,” Veronica put 
in, “ that Joe has inoculated Maud with the true 
Daneshire notion that only Daneshire folks, born 
and bred, can ride ?” 

Maud smiled and shook her head. 

“Sir John charged me,” said the vicar, “with 
‘a thousand heart-felt thanks to my amiable 
daughters.’ ” 

“ Thanks ?” exclaimed Veronica. “ Truly we 
have done nothing for him. Paul takes care 
that his master shall lack no service. So, then. 
Sir John thinks that Maud is your daughter as 
well as I ?” 

“I suppose so. It matters nothing. In a 
short time he will go away, and in a — perhaps — 
rather longer time, will have forgotten all about 


15 

us ; so that it was very unnecessary to trouble 
him with family details.” 

‘ ‘ If he forgets all about you^ it will be very 
ungrateful. Uncle Charles,” said Maud. 

From the earliest days of her coming to the 
vicarage, Maud Desmond had been used to 
call Mr. Levincourt and his wife “uncle” and 
“ aunt although she was, of course, aware that 
no relationship really existed between them and 
herself. 

“ Ungrateful? Well, I don’t know. It Avould 
scarcely have been practicable to leave him out- 
side the garden gate all night. Do you know 
any one who would have shut the door and gone 
in quietly to bed under the circumstances ?” 

“Forget us!” cried Veronica, with an impa- 
tient shrug of her shoulders ; “no doubt he will 
forget us ! Who that once turned his back on 
Shipley would care ever to think of it again ?” 

“7 would,” replied Maud, very quietly. 

“Would you? I am not sure of that. But 
at all events the cases are widely different. Sir 
John is wealthy. He can travel. He has seen 
many countries, Paul says : France, Italy, the 
East. He can go where he pleases ; can enjoy 
society. Oh, Shipley -in -the -Wold must be a 
mere little ugly blot on Ms map of the world !” 

The vicar sighed, uncrossed his legs, and 
stretched them out straight before him, so as to 
bring his feet nearer to the fire. 

“ What made him come to the little ugly blot, 
then, when he had all the sunny places to choose 
from ?” demanded Maud, indignantly. 

“He came for the hunting, I suppose.” 

“Very well, then; you see there was some- 
thing in Shipley that he couldn’t get in his France, 
and his Italy, and his East !” 

Veronica burst out laughing. She seated her- 
self on the rug at Maud’s feet, and leaning back 
looked up into her face. “What a child you 
are, Maudie !” she exclaimed. “ 77fs F ranee and 
Ms East ! Yes ; I supj^se rich people find good 
things every where — even in Shipley.” 

“And they get pitched off their horses, and 
are bruised and cut, and burnt by fever, and 
prostrated by weakness, in spite of their riches,” 
observed Maud, philosophically. 

“Children,” said the vicar, suddenly, “ do you 
want to go to Lowater on the nineteenth ?” 

“Of course we do, papa. What is it ? Have 
you had an invitation ?” 

Veronica’s eyes sparkled, and her rosy lips 
smiled, and she clapped her slender hands to- 
gether joyously. Maud, too, looked eager and 
interested. 

“ Yes,” answered Mr. Levincourt ; “I have 
had an invitation for us all to dine with the 
Sheardowns on the nineteenth. It is their wed- 
ding-day.” 

“ How exquisite !” cried Veronica, seizing one 
of Maud’s hands that rested on her shoulder, and 
squeezing it hard. “A dinner-party! A well 
in the desert ! A tuft of palm-trees in a l)arren 
land!” 

“ I suppose we must go,” said the vicar, plaint- 
ively. 

“I ‘ suppose we must,’ indeed. Why, papa, 
vou know you like the idea of it as much as we 
do.” 

“I am always charmed to meet Mrs. Shear- 
down and the captain.” 

“No doubt of it,” cried Veronica, now in a 


VERONICA. 


16 

full glow of excitement. “We know that you 
are Mistress Nelly Sheardown’s most devoted 
cavalier. But it isn’t only that, papa mio. You 
like the idea of a change, a break in the monot- 
ony, a peep at something beyond Shipley. You 
would like to go, if it were even to dine at Ilay- 
moor with old Lady Alicia. And quite right 
too, say I.” 

The vicar made an attempt to assert his pre- 
rogative of victimhood, but in vain. 

The varying thermometer of Veronica’s spirits 
had risen to fever heat, and she rattled on volu- 
bly, speculating as to who there would be at Lo- 
water ; whether Mrs. Sheardown would contrive 
to give them a dance in the evening; what she 
should wear (exhaustless theme), and so forth'. 

At length the stream of words slackened, and 
then ceased. The rival merits of scarlet and 
amber ribbons demanded an absorbed and silent 
consideration. 

“Don’t you think, Uncle Charles,” said Maud, 
“that Mrs. Sheardown is the sweetest woman 
you ever saw ?” 

“ She is charming, in truth ; charming and 
excellent ; and, moreover, possesses a mind of 
a very superior calibre. ” 

“Bravo, Uncle Charles! And then she is — 
in my eyes, at least — so pretty. That quality 
must not be omitted in the catalogue of her per- 
fections.” 

“ I am not quite sure on the point, Maudie. 
Is she very pretty ? I don’t think that any man 
• would ever have fallen in love with Mrs. Shear- 
down for her beauty.” 

“Perhaps not. And if so, all the better. 
Sure I am that any one who once loved her 
would never cease to think her beautiful. ” 

Veronica looked up. “All true,” she said. 
“I agree with your eulogium. And observe 
that it is pure magnanimity which prompts me 
to do so. For sweet Mistress Nelly does not 
like me one bit.” A 

“ Oh, Veronica !” ^ 

“Oh, Maud ! It is so. I have a sixth sense 
which never deceives me in these matters. I 
knoio that to Mrs. Sheardown I am not sim- 
patica.” 

‘ ‘ Simpatica ! Nonsense. Whenever you use 
an Italian word where an English one would 
serve, 1 knoAv that you are saying something 
that won’t bear daylight. Why should not Mrs. 
Sheardown like you ?” 

Veronica clasped her hands behind her head, 
and rested both head and arms on Maud’s knee. 
Then, with her eyes cast contemplatively up- 
ward, “ Because I am not good,” said she. 

The vicar’s brows contracted into an uneasy 
pucker as he looked down on his daughter’s 
beautiful face. 

“Veronica,” he said, almost sternl}', “I wish 
you would not say such things. ” 

“Very well, papa ; I won’t.” 

“Still more, I wish that you would not think 
such thoughts.” 

‘ ‘ Ah, questo poi — ” 

“ If you please, Sir,” said Catherine, the maid, 
putting her rosy face into the room, “here is 
j\Ir. Flew.” 

iNIr. Flew Avas hospitably invited to enter. 
The surgeon of Shipley was a small man, with a 
fiinge of straight, light hair round a bald crown. 
Ills eyes Avere of a Aveak blue tint, his skin usu- 


ally pale yelloAV. On the present occasion, hoAv- 
ever, it burned Avith a fiery red, in consequence 
of the change from the piercing outer air to the 
temperature of the vicar’s Avell-Avarmed and Avell- 
lighted parlor. His eyes Avatered, and his frost- 
inflamed nose gloAved like a hot coal, aboA^e the 
Avhite Avooleii comforter that enveloped his throat. 

“I fear I am intruding at an unseasonable 
hour,” said Mr. FleAv, speaking Avith a strong 
provincial accent and a gentle, deprecating man- 
ner. 

“By no means. Fray come in. It is our 
idle hour, you know. Veronica, ring for a 
clean cup, and giA’e JMr. FJcav some tea,” said 
the vicar. 

‘ ‘ Not any, thank you. Fray don’t move. Miss 
Levincourt. I haA^e just left our patient’s room. 
I could not resist coming to congratulate you 
on the favorable A^erdict that Dr. Gunnery pro- 
nounced this morning. Faul told me. I Avas 
unable to be here earlier in the day. But from 
my own obserA^ation of Sir John’s condition this 
evening, I am quite able to indorse Avhat Dr. 
Gunnery said. Danger is over for the pres- 
ent.” 

Mr. Flew spoke in a rather hesitating, shy 
Avay. And, although he seemingly tried to con- 
trol his Avandering glances, he could not help 
turning his eyes at eA'ery minute tOAvard the 
hearth, Avhere Miss Levincourt still remained in 
her nonchalant attitude on the rug. 

“Veronica, get up,” Avhispered Maud. 

‘ ‘ Why ? I am very comfortable. Mr. FIcav 
is an old friend. We don’t treat him Avith cere- 
mony ; do Ave, JMr. FIcav ?” said Veronica aloud. 

“Oh dear. Miss Levincourt, I trust not. I 
beg — that is — I hope you would not think of 
disturbing yourself on my account.” 

“Then you must seek another cushion,” said 
Maud, bluntly. “I am AA'eary of your AA^eight. 
You are as Avell able to support yourself as 1 am 
to support you. ” 

With that JMiss Desmond rose, crossed the 
room, and took a chair beside the vicar. Mr. 
FleAv’s face uttered a mute and disapproA’ing 
commentary on the action. 

Veronica caught his look, and instantly an- 
SAvered it by speech. 

‘ ‘ Is Miss Desmond bound to gh'e Avay to my 
whims, pray? I have more selfishness in my 
little finger than she has in her Avhole composi- 
tion. She is Avorth three times my Aveight, in 
pure gold. Ain’t you, Maudie ?” 

“I should say,” ansAvered Maud, stiffly, “that 
a discussion of our comparative merits Avould be 
highly uninteresting to Mr. Flew.” 

Mr. FleAV looked amazingly uncomfortable. 
The vicar came to his rescue. 

“We are much obliged to your unremitting 
attention, Mr. FleAv. And to it is oAving, under 
Frovidence, the happy issue of this affair. I can 
venture to say that Sir John is very sensible of 
his debt to you. I haA'e seen and sp%ken Avith 
him to-day for the first time.” 

“Oh, indeed. Sir?” 

“ Yes ; a very agreeable man. Sir John.” 

“I dare say he is, Mr. Levincourt. But you 
knoAv the circumstances under Avhich I haA'e seen 
him have not been favorable exactly. ” Here Mr. 
Flew tittered faintly. 

“ H’m ! Not a good patient, eh ?” 

“I AA'on’t say that, Sir. But I should say he 


VERONICA. 


17 


had not been accustomed to be restrained in any 
>vay. His servant manages him, though. ” 

“ Paul is a capital fellow ; one of those excel- 
lent servants that one never finds in England.” 

“Indeed, Sir?” 

“No, our soil won’t grow them. Or, if one 
is to be found here and there, they are, at any 
rate, not indigenous to Daneshire.” 

“Daneshire people, high or low, are not re- 
markable for civility,” observed Veronica. 

“ Nor servility,” added Maud. 

“I suppose we shall soon be losing our guest,” 
resumed the vicar. “He spoke to-day of re- 
lieving us of his presence, et cetera. The fact 
is, that to us personally his stay involves scarcely 
any inconvenience. But he will naturally be 
anxious to be gone as soon as may be. How 
soon do you think he Avill be able to travel ?” 

Mr. Blew could not tell. He would be able 
to judge better on that point when the sick man 
should have left his couch. He anticipated that 
Sir John would find himself very weak. There 
had been much prostration. 

“I hear,” proceeded Mr. Blew, “that Sir 
John Gale’s groom and three hunters have been 
sent away from the Crown. I was at Shipley 
INIagna to-day, and was told that the servant and 
horses had left for Danecester on Wednesday. 
They are bound for a place that Sir John owns, 
in the south somewhere. I forget the name of it. 
He is immensely rich, from what I can gather.” 

As thus Mr. Blew gossiped on, in a monoto- 
nous tone, the vicar listened, or seemed to listen, 
with half-closed eyes. His thoughts were in 
reality harking back to Veronica’s phrase that 
Shipley must be “ a mere little ugly blot” in Sir 
John’s map of the world. And then the vicar 
indulged in some “sweet self-pity;” contrasting 
his days spent among Daneshire hinds, and un- 
der Daneshire skies, with the brightness of his 
three years’ sojourn abroad. And yet those 
years spent in foreign lands had been haunted 
by the ghost of a lost love, and by a vain re- 
gret. 

Presently Mr. Blew’s talk turned on the choir 
of St. Gildas, the progress it had made, and the 
desirability of introducing still further improve- 
ments. Then Mr. Levincourt roused himself to 
attend to what was being said. He began to 
talk himself, and he talked very well. Veronica 
and Maud sat a little apart, away from the glare 
of the fire, and held a whispered consultation as 
to their toilets on the nineteenth. 

Maud had her share of natural girlish interest 
in the topic ; but she tired of it long before her 
companion. With a quiet movement she drew 
a book from beneath a heap of colored wools and 
canvas in her work-basket, and began to read, 
almost stealthily, half hidden behind the vicar’s 
arm-chair. 

Veronica advanced to the hearth, drew her 
chair up opposite to Mr. BIoav, and disposed one 
foot, coquettishly peeping from under the folds 
of her dress, on the polished steel bar of the 
fender. 

Mr. PleAV stumbled, stammered, and lost the 
thread of his discourse. 

“I beg your pardon,” said the vicar, “I don’t 
comprehend your last remark. I Avas saying 
that there are some pretty quaint bits of melody 
in those sonatas of Kozeluch. Miss Desmond 
plays the juano-forte part. Bring your flute some 


evening, and try them over with her. The piano- 
forte may be unlocked again noAv, I suppose. 
When I said that Sir John’s stay involved no 
personal inconvenience to us, I reckoned on our 
being allowed to hear the voice of music once 
again.” 

“Mr. PleAv’s flute has the softest of voices, 
papa. I am sure its aerial breathings could not 
penetrate to the blue chamber.” 

“Ah, there, noAv — there. Miss Veronica — Miss 
Levincourt — you’re chaffing me.” 

“Eh?” (Avith wide-opened eyes and superb 
arching of the broAvs.) 

“I beg pardon — laughing at me.” 

“ Hoav can you think so, Mr. BIcav ?” 

“Oh, I knoAv. But you are priA’ileged, of 
course.” 

“Am I?” 

‘ ‘ I mean young ladies in general are privi- 
leged to say Avhat they please. I’m sure, noAvq 
that you don't really care about my flute-playing. 
You Avonld not like to hear it.” 

“ But it is papa and Miss Desmond Avhom you 
play for. If they are satisfied, all is Avell. I 
don’t pretend to be a Aurtuosa. And I AA’ill say 
this for your flute, Mr. BleAV — it is very unob- 
trusive.” 

The sparkle of raillery in her eyes, the saucy 
smile on her lip, the half-disdainful grace of her 
attitude, appeared to entrance the little surgeon. 
His eyes blinked as he looked at her. There 
Avas no reA'olt in his meek soul against the scarce- 
ly disguised insolence of her manner. 

The vicar Avas a man of fine breeding. His 
daughter’s behavior to-night jarred on his taste. 
Mr. Levincourt did not usually trouble himself 
to observe, still less to correct, such shortcom- 
ings. But his intervieAv Avith Sir John Gale had 
awakened old associations. He Avas conscious 
of the impression Avhich his own polished address 
had made on his guest. 

When Mr. BleAv had departed the vicar said, 
in a tone more of complaint than rebuke : “ You 
should not tease that mild little man, Veronica. 
He does not understand raillery, and Avill either 
presume on it to become familiar, or else suffer 
from Avounded feeling. Neither alternative is to 
be desired.” 

“ Bapa mio, he likes it !” 

“But I do not. Besides, it is of you that I 
am thinking. Flippancy in a AV'oman is of all 
things the most detestable. Not to speak of the 
matter on higher grounds” (the Aucar habitually 
avoided all appeal to “higher grounds” in his 
non-professional moments), “it is utterly in bad 
taste — mauA-ais genre.” 

Veronica flushed high Avith anger, for her amour 
propre Avas stung ; but by the time that she and 
Maud retired for the night the cloud of temper 
had dispersed. Veronica came into Maud’s 
room, and began chatting gayly about Mrs. 
SheardoAvn’s dinner-party. 

“Maud,” said she, “Maud, I haA^e decided 
on amber — a good rich amber, you knoAv. I 
shall wear an amber satin sash Avith my Avhite 
dress, and a streak of the same color — ^just a band 
of it — in my hair.” 

“ Very Avell.” 

“ Very Avell? Are you in one of your frozen 
moods, Maud Hilda Desmond ? If so, thaAV as 
quickly as may be; I Avant to talk to you.” 

Maud Avrapped a Avhite dressing-gOAvn around 


VERONICA. 


her, seated herself by the fire, and proceeded to 
loosen her straight silky hair from its plaits. 

After a pause she said : “ I do not wish to be 
frozen, Veronica; but your sudden changes of 
temperature are fatiguing. Just now you were 
like a brooding thunder-cloud. At present all 
is sunshine and blue sky. Do you suppose you 
are likely always to find persons able and willing 
to follow these capricious variations ?” ^ 

Veronica took this speech very meekly. I 
can’t help it, Maudie,” said she. 

“Yes, you can; you can command yourself 
when there is a sufficient object in view. \ou 
don’t exhibit these vagaries in the presence of 
people whom you desire to charm.” 

“ I wonder why I let you talk so to me. I 
am your elder by two years, you little solemn 
white owl!” 

Maud quietly released the last coil of her hair 
from its bonds, and said nothing. Suddenly 
Veronica knelt down by her companion’s side 
and clasped her arms round her waist. So she 
remained, still and silent, for some minutes. 
Then she slid down into her favorite posture on 
the rug, and exclaimed, witliout looking up, “ I 
wish I could be good like you, Maud ! ” 

“Nonsense ! Good like me ? lam not very 
good. But we can all be better if we try 
hard.” 

“ I can not. No ; I can not. I — I — want so 
many things that good people despise — or pre- 
tend to despise.” 

“ What things ?” 

“Oh, I don’t know; all sorts of things. Is 
there nothing you want ?” 

“ Plenty of things I should like. But I don’t 
see how wanting things should prevent your be- 
ing good. ” 

“But I want vain, wicked, worldly things, 
Maudie !” 

“And do you think vain, wicked, worldly 
things Avould make you happy ?” 

“Yes, I do. There! Don’t look so scared, 
and open your eyes so wide, white owl. That’s 
the truth. You always advocate speaking the 
truth, you know. Good-night.” 

“ Good-night, Veronica. You are in one of 
your perv'erse moods to-night. There is no use 
in arguing with you.” 

“ Not a bit of use !” 

“But you are wiser than your words. You 
know better. ” 

“ That’s the worst of it ! I wish I didn’t know 
better. The fools are never troubled by know- 
ing better, I know the better and want the 
worse. There, now, you are frozen into an ice- 
maiden again ! ” 

Maud remained pale and silent, gazing straight 
before her. 

Veronica waited a minute, lingering near the 
door, and then, with a little defiant toss of the 
head, shrugged her shoulders and left the room 
without another word. 

The house was still ; the vibrations of the last 
stroke of eleven, boomed out by the deep-voiced 
bell of St. Gildas, were dying away ; the glow of 
the fire had died down to a faint red glimmer, 
when a white figure glided noiselessly to Maud’s 
bedside. 

‘ ‘ Maudie ! Maudie ! Are you asleep ?” 

“ Veronica ! "What is it ? What is the mat- 
ter?” 


“ Nothing. Kiss me, Maud. I can not sleep 
until you have done so.” 

Maud raised her head from the pillow and 
kissed the other girl’s cheek. 

“ Good-night, dear Veronica,” she whispered. 
‘ ‘ God bless you, Maudie ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

CONVALESCENT. 

“ Paul !” cried a harsh, querulous voice from 
behind the curtains of the bed in the guest-cham- 
ber at Shipley vicarage. “Paul! Where the 
devil—” 

Then followed a string of oaths in English, 
French, and Italian ; not pretty rose-water ex- 
pletives, such as are occasionally attributed in the 
pages of fashionable novels to irresistible young 
guardsmen and such-like curled darlings of the 
world. There was no odor of rose-water about 
these oaths. They were vile, fierce, blasphemous 
phrases, borrowed from the vocabulary of the ig- 
norant and degraded. 

Sir John Gale was the speaker. Sir John 
Gale was impatient and angry. When that was 
the case. Sir John Gale was apt to express him- 
self in the strongest, coarsest, most ferocious lan- 
guage Avith Avhich his tongue was acquainted. 

Presently the door opened, and Paul came into 
the room. Paolo Paoli was a Piedmontese. 
He AA^as a short, thick, ugly, middle-aged man, 
Avith grave light-colored eyes, set under over- 
hanging broAvs. He had a shock of grizzled 
hair, and a broad forehead, and his face Avas 
clean shaven. 

Paul had been a courier, and in this capacity 
had attracted the attention, and aa'oii the favorable 
opinion, of Sir John Gale. The latter had eleva- 
ted Paul to the post of confidential and personal 
attendant on himself. A “ confidential” attend- 
ant might seem at first sight to be of small value 
to Sir John, considering that he neA'er A^olunta- 
rily made a confidence to any human being. But 
there are involuntary confidences Avhich Ave all 
make daily and hourly respecting ourselves. The 
recipient of these in Sir John’s case needed to be 
stanch, patient, and discreet. Paul av'hs all three. 

He entered the chamber, bearing in his hand 
a tray coA'ered Avith*^ napkin, on Avhich was placed 
a small basin of soup. 

His master saluted him with a volley of abuse 
for having delayed. 

Paul very gravely set down the tray, I’aised his 
master in the bed, supported his back Avith pil- 
lows, threAv a dressing-goAvn over his shoulders, 
and then, pulling from his Avaistcoat pocket a 
large silver Avatch attached to a black ribbon, 
said, “It is time for your soup. Sir.” 

Sir John tasted the soup, made a grimace of 
disgust, and launched another volley of oaths at 
Paul. 

“ This is uneatable — beastly ! They have put 
sage, or some damned thing into it. Ugh !” 

“Very good soup. Sir,” replied Paul, imper- 
turbably. “No sage. I saAv it made. You eat 
it Avarm, Sir. It will give strength. Very good 
soup.” 

The convalescent continued to grumble at eA’- 
ery spoonful ; but he SAvalloAved the savory, nour- 
ishing broth to the last drop. And then Paul 


VERONICA. 


19 


removed the tray, mended the fire, and proceed- 
ed to lay out his master’s clothes ; for the invalid 
was to leave his room to-day, for the first time 
since his accident. 

Sir John looked upward from among his pil- 
lows to where the window gave a glimpse of pale 
blue March sky, fretted by the skeleton branches 
of the yet bare trees. 

“It’s a fine day, eh?” he asked. 

“ Yes, Sir. Cold. You must be well wrapped. 
Sir.” 

“What sort of place is the sitting-room?” 

Paul described, as well as he could, the apart- 
ment which he called the salon, and with the 
aspect of which the reader is already acquainted, 
lie further stated that there was a comfortable 
arm-chair at Sir John’s disposal ; that a screen 
and a curtain had been arranged behind this 
chair so as to exclude all draughts ; and that a 
foot-stool had been placed in front of it. 

“How devilish weak I am!” exclaimed Sir 
John, with an almost piteous expression of face, 
as he essayed, with his servant’s assistance, to 
dress himself. 

This was not the first time that he had left 
his bed. He had been wrapped in a dressing- 
gown, and seated in an easy-chair by the fire- 
side in his own chamber, on several previous 
occasions. But now he was to venture into the 
sitting-room, have tea with the vicar’s family, 
and make the acquaintance of the young ladies. 

On the part of these latter there was a good 
deal olf curiosity respecting their guest. The 
two girls did not even know with any accuracy 
what his personal appeai'ance might be. True, 
they had seen him — if it could be called seeing 
when he was swooning, bleeding, mud-bespat- 
tered, on the ground at their gate. But who 
could judge of a gentleman’s looks under such 
circumstances ? 

When 8ir John Gale stood for a moment at 
the open door of the parlor leaning on Paul’s 
arm, and looking his first look at the vicar’s 
daughter and ward, this is what their eyes be- 
held : a man of middle height, slenderly made 
and somewhat high shouldered, dressed with 
scrupulous neatness — even with elegance — and 
bearing traces in his face and his attitude of re- 
cent severe illness. 

How much of the worn aspect of his face, and 
the unwholesomeness of the skin — which looked 
as though it should naturally have been ruddy 
and plumply filled out, but which now hung 
white and flaccid over the cheeks, and in bagg}^ 
wrinkles beneath the prominent dark eyes — how 
much of the sickly whiteness of the bony hands, 
white as a woman’s, but knotted and plowed 
with deep lines like those of a very aged man — 
how much, in brief, of the general debility, and 
air of being used-up, now perceptible in Sir 
John’s aspect, was due to recent suftering, and 
how much of all this had belonged to it for years 
I)ast, the vicar’s family could not tell. They ac- 
cepted his appearance as being the natural ap- 
pearance of a man no longer young, who had 
just arisen from a bed of sickness where his 
mind and body had both been severely tried. 

He had sandy hair, slightly grizzled, carefully 
brushed, and so disposed as to hide, as far as 
possible, a bald patch on the crown of the head. 
He wore a pointed beard, and mustaches that 
curved fiercely upward. His nose was well 


shaped, although rather sharp and beak-like. 
The tell-tale mouth was partly concealed by the 
fringe of mustache. Altogether he miglit have 
been pronounced a handsome man ; and he was 
pronounced to be so by many persons. 

In the sitting-room awaiting him were IMr. 
Levincourt with Maud and Veronica. The lat- 
ter wore a winter dress of rich claret color, re- 
lieved at the throat and wrists by ruffles of white 
lace — very fine old lace that had belonged to her 
mother, and that was, in truth, a little out of 
place on her plain stuff gown. 

Maud was an inch or two shorter than her com- 
panion ; she had broad, finely moulded shoul- 
ders, and a noble Avhite throat supporting a head 
Avhose form and proportions Avere almost perfect. 
Her features Avere irregular, and not one of 
them could be called handsome, save the al- 
mond-shaped blue eyes set rather deeply under 
broad broAvs. Her Avide mobile mouth Avas not 
beautiful, though its SAA’eetness, Avhen she spoke 
or smiled, aa'us irresistible. But one beauty 
Maud Desmond possessed Avhich appealed to the 
least cultivated appreciation : this AA as her hair, 
Avhich Avas of a rare golden hue. When the sun- 
light fell on it, it shone as though each separate 
hair had been draAvn out of burnished metal, 
and it AA^as softer to the touch than silk. 

On these tAvo girls, and on their surroundings, 
looked, for the first time. Sir J ohn Gale. 

The vicar hastened foiuvard to offer his guest 
the support of his arm, Avhich the latter gentle- 
man accepted after a moment’s hesitation. 

“ I am ashamed,” said Sir John, Avith a frank 
smile, Avhich shoAved a bright range of false 
teeth, “ashamed and sorry to be such a bore 
and a nuisance. But the truth is, I had no 
idea, until I began to dress just noAV, hoAv en- 
tirely my strength aa'us prostrated. It seems 
absurd, but I am absolutely as Aveak as a baby.” 

“We are truly rejoiced, most truly so, to 
Avelcome you among us. Your strength Avill 
come back, undoubtedly. It is noAv only a ques- 
tion of time. Have patience yet a Avhile. My 
daughter. Sir John Gale. My Avard, Miss Des- 
mond. Paul, be so good as to Avheel your mas- 
ter’s chair a little more this Avay.” 

The baronet took the hand Avhich Veronica 
had half offered, half AA'ithheld, and boAved Ioav. 

Maud saluted him by a smile and a bend of 
the head, Avhich he returned by a still loAver boAv 
than the first. 

“ I trust,” said Sir John, Avhen he AA’as seated, 
“that Mr. Levincourt has been so very kind as 
to explain to you hoAv impossible I find it to ex- 
press in any adequate Avay my sense of your great 
goodness and hospitality.” 

His glance, as he spoke, included the tAvo young 
ladies. 

“ We are very glad tp see you so much better,” 
said IVIaud. 

“And the truth is, Ave have done nothing at 
all for you. Sir John; Paul AA'Ould not let us,” 
added Veronica. 

“That man of yours is an excellent felloAV,” 
said the vicar, when Paul had left the room. 
“There are no such seiwants to be had in En- 
gland noAvadays. Veronica, giA'e Sir John some 
tea, and then ring for another large cup for me. 
I can not be persuaded to drink my tea out of a 
thing no bigger than an egg-shell,” he added, 
turning to his guest. 


20 


VERONICA. 


“Not to mention, papa, that these tiny tea- 
cups are quite old-fashioned now!” exclaimed 
Veronica, with a bright, saucy smile, which be- 
came her infinitely. 

“Are they? How do you know? We live 
here. Sir John, in the most countrified of coun- 
try parsonages, and yet — But, upon my hon- 
or, I believe that if you were to stick a woman 
on the top of the column of St. Simeon Stylites, 
she would nevertheless contrive in some myste- 
rious way to know what was ‘ in fashion and 
what wasn’t.” 

“Perhaps it is a sixth sense implanted in us 
by nature. Uncle Charles,” said Maud, demure- 
ly. “ You know the inferior animals have these 
mysterious instincts.” 

Sir John’s eyes had hitherto been contempla- 
ting the glossy coils of Veronica’s ebon hair, as 
she bent her head over the tea equipage. Now, 
he turned and regarded Maud more attentively 
than he yet had done. 

“I beg pardon,” said he to the vicar. “I 
thought that when you did me the honor to pre- 
sent me to Miss — Miss Dermott — you called her 
your ward ?” 

“ Yes ; and so I am,” answered Maud, taking 
no notice of the mispronunciation of her name. 
“I have no right whatever to call Mr. Levin- 
court ‘Uncle Charles,’ Sir John. But I have 
been let to do so ever since I came here as a 
very small child. I began by calling him ‘ Zio,’ 
as Mrs. Levincourt taught me, in Italian fash- 
ion. But very soon my British tongue translat- 
ed the appellation, and my guardian has been 
‘ Uncle Charles’ ever since.” 

Sir John did not appear profoundly interested 
in this explanation, although he listened with po- 
lite attention while Maud spoke. 

Presently he and the vicar began discoursing 
of foreign travel and foreign places, and the girls 
listened almost in silence. 

“Ah!” sighed the vicar, plaintively. “Bel 
cielo d’ltalia! I know not what price I would 
not pay for another glimpse of that intense living 
blue, after the fogs and clouds of Daneshire.” 

Mr. Levincourt had succeeded in persuading 
himself that the three years he had spent abroad 
had been years of unmixed enjoyment. 

“I tell you what it is, Mr. Levincourt,” said 
Sir John, passing his bony white hand over his 
mustache; “Italy is not the pleasant residence 
for foreigners that it must have been when you 
first knew it. What with their unionism, and 
constitutionalism, and liberalism, they’ve sent 

the_ whole thing to the ; they’ve spoiled the 

society altogether,” concluded the baronet, dis- 
creetly changing the form of his phrase. 

“Really?” 

“Well, in fifty ways, things are altered for 
the worse, even in my experience of Italy, which 
dates now, at intervals, some twelve or fourteen 
years back. Por one thing, that British Moloch, 
Mrs. Grundy, has begun to be set up there.” 

Veronica raised her eyes and uttered a little 
exclamation expressive of disgust. 

“I should not think that mattered very much,” 
said Maud, half aloud. 

Sir John caught the impulsively uttered words, 
and replied at once. “Not matter? Ah, Jeu- 
nesse ! I assure you, my dear young lady, that 
it matters a great deal. JMrs. Grundy is "a very 
terrible and hideous old idol indeed. She can 


bully you, and worry you, and rap you on the 
head with her twopenny wooden staft'. ” 

Maud colored high at being thus addressed, 
but she answered bravely. “Still I can not 
see that she has power to hurt good people. I 
thought it was only the professional pickpocket 
who objected to seeing a constable at every 
street corner !” 

Sir John Gale’s studied good-breeding partook 
less of the nature of polish — which beautifies and 
displays the natural grain of the wood — than of 
veneer. The veneer, though not unskillfully ap- 
plied, occasionally cracked, revealing glimpses 
of a rather coarse and ugly material beneath it. 
He had especially an egotistical proneness to at- 
tribute chance allusions to himself. 

‘ ‘ Really ! ” he exclaimed. ‘ ‘ I am to conclude 
that you suppose that I dislike Mrs. Grundy be- 
cause I fear her? She is the policeman at the 
street corner, and your humble servant is the 
professional pickpocket ?” 

Maud looked painfully shocked. The color 
receded from her face, and then flushed back 
brighter than ever as she said, “Oh, Sir John! 
How could you suppose — ? I — I beg your par- 
don. I had no intention or idea of any such 
meaning.” 

But Sir John had already begun a discussion 
with the vicar as to the comparative merits of 
Tuscan and Neapolitan wines, and seemed to 
have dismissed Maud’s unlucky speech from 
his mind. 

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, un- 
til the early hour at which it was deemed well 
for the invalid to retire. 

The vicar was delighted with his guest. Mr. 
Levincourt declared that he felt like some ship- 
wrecked mariner who had passed years in a sav- 
age island, and to whose door the winds and the 
waves had drifted a stranger from the distant 
lands of civilization. 

“ It would be more civil, papa, if you had said 
that we were three shipwrecked mariners. A 
kind of Swiss Family Robinson,” observed Ve- 
ronica, laughing. 

The exaggeration of all this grated on Maud’s 
common-sense. But she repressed the protest 
which trembled on her lips. 

“ Maudie looks sagely disapproving,” said 
Veronica, glancing at her. 

“I am disapproving myself,” replied Maud. 
“How pert and flippant Sir John must have 
thought me ! My impulsive speeches are always 
getting me into trouble. ” ^ 

“Oh ! I do not believe that Sir John will give 
the matter another thought. But if it weighs on 
your conscience you can explain, the next time 
you see him, that — ” 

“Ah, no : there are some things that can not 
be explained — to Sir John Gale.” 

“Why not to him ? He is not stupid.” 

“No, he is not stupid, but — He is like some 
richly embroidered stuff I once saw : very gor- 
geous and magnificent at a distance, but a little 
coarse in the grain, and not to be touched with 
impunity by a sensitive skin.” 

“ H’m ! You little shy, proud, English owl !” 
exclaimed Veronica. 

And then for a full half hour she remained 
staring silently into the fire, until her satin 
cheeks were quite scorched and crimson. 

The next day was the nineteenth, and tlie two 


21 




Q. 

o 


■ 


VERONICA. 


girls were in a state of agreeable' excitement at 
the prospect of the dinner-party which awaited 
them. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE DINNER AT LO WATER. 


The kitchen was pervaded by a smell of iron- 
ing. Joanna was smoothing out dainty little 
tuckers and a long white muslin skirt, over 
which Veronica’s gold-colored sash was pres- 
ently to stream gracefully. Early in the after- 
noon a wooden box arrived by a special messen- 
ger from Danecester, and was found to coptain 
two bouquets carefully wrapped in cotton wool. 

Sir John Gale — who had not yet left his room 
at that early hour — sent Paul into the vicar’s 
study with a little note, in which Sir John begged 
that the young ladies would do him the honor to 
wear a few flowers that he had taken the liberty 
of procuring for them. 

“ A few flowers !” cried Veronica, with spark- 
ling eyes. “They are exquisite. They come 
from Covent Garden. There’s the man’s, name 
in the box. Look at these white moss-roses and 
the Cape jasmine! Your bouquet is mixed, 
Maudie ; mine is all white. How perfect 1 Do 
look pleased, little icicle ! ” 

“I am pleased,” said Maud, with a certain 
constraint. “And very, very much obliged.” 

Veronica carried the superb exotics into the 
kitchen, and exhibited them with transport to 
the servants. The young lady had a genuine 
passion for applause and admiration. She could 
not be entirely happy without an audience to 
witness her happiness. It had been the same 
from her baby days. When, as quite little girls, 
they had owned a shaggy pony which was sup- 
posed to be the joint property of the two chil- 
dren, Maud had heartily enjoyed trotting out 
into the wildest bits of country she could find ; 
but Veronica’s delight had been to find an ex- 
cuse for riding through the village, or even, if 
that might be, into Shipley Magna. And her 
chubby cheeks would glow and her eyes would 
brighten when she heard passers-by exclaiming 
that that was the vicar’s little lass ; and hadn’t 
she a pair of eyes ? And didn’t she look like a 
fairy, flying along with her black curls stream- 
ing over her shoulders ? So now, when she had 
the costly flowers in her hand, she could not re- 
sist displaying them to the servants ; and she took 
a creamy spotless camellia from the outside of 
her own bouquet and laid it among the rich 
waves of her hair, and stood with a beaming 
face to be admired. 

Catherine was in ecstasies, and declared, when 
her young mistress had gone away again, that 
she liked Miss Veronica, that she did, for she 
had such pleasant, good-natured ways with 
her. 

But old Joanna smiled shrewdly, and observed 
that the lass was the very moral of her poor mo- 
ther in some things ; and that a bit of show-off 
was the breath of her nostrils. “Not but what,” 
added Joanna, “Miss Veronica has more sense 
in her little finger than the poor missis had in 
all her body. And a will she has, has the lass, 
that’s as stout as steel ! A will for any thing 
she fancies, I mean : she can’t be stubborn and 
strong about doing things as is only her duty. 
But if there’s summat as she wants for her own 
good pleasure, you’ll see she’ll get it. It was 
the same wi’ her since she could toddle, poor 
lass ! JMany a forbidden fruit she’s aten, an’ 
many a stomach-ache she’s had for her pains!” 


Very jolly Captain Sheardown looked, and 
very radiant his wife, as they welcomed the party 
from the vicarage into their warm, w'ell-lighted 
drawing-room. 

“Your reverence has had a cold drive,” said 
Captain Sheardown, jocularly. And then he 
and the vicar and Mr. Snowe — who, with his 
son, Herbert, had arrived not many minutes 
previously — stood on the hearth-rug and talked 
of the weather, and the hunting, and the Colenso 
controversy, or whatsoever topic was then chief- 
ly arousing the attention of the British public. 
Mrs. Sheardown, meanwhile, Avelcomed the girls, 
and installed them in comfortable arm-chairs, 
one on either side of her. Nelly Sheardown was 
about thirty-five years old. She had not been 
married more than eight years, for she and the 
captain had been constant to each other through 
a long engagement ; and Tom Sheardown’s head 
was gray before he could declare that his fight 
with fortune was fought out, and could claim 
Nelly Cherbrook for his wife. He was twenty 
years her senior ; and there appeared to be even 
more difference between their ages. For IMrs. 
Sheardown looked younger now than she had 
done before her marriage, during the weary 
years of waiting that had sickened the heart with 
hope deferred, and graven lines in the face. 

“ How is your guest ?” asked Mrs. Sheardown 
of Veronica. 

“Sir John is getting much better: nearly Avell, 
thank you. It is such a comfort for papa to feel 
assured that all danger is over. It was a great 
responsibility, you know, having a total stranger 
in the house in that state;” thus, Veronica. 

“None of his relations came to see him?” 

“ He has lived abroad, and has no family ties 
in England, Mrs. Sheardown.” 

‘ ‘ Poor old man ! It is a lonely position for 
him. ” 

Veronica gave a rapid glance at her hostess’s 
honest face, and then buried her own among her 
flowers. 

Maud laughed heartily. “Dear Mrs. Shear- 
down,” she said, “ do you know I have a notion 
that Sir John Gale does not by any means look 
upon himself in that light.” 

“ In what light ?” 

“As a ‘ lonely old man.’ ” 

“ Oh ! I thought — I didn’t know — ” 

“ Lady Alicia Renwick,” cried Captain Shear- 
down’s old servant, throsving open the door. 
And the hostess rose and went to welcome the 
new arrival. 

Lady Alicia Renwick Avas the daughter of a 
Scotch peer, and the widow of a gentleman who 
had made a large fortune in some iron-works. 
Still further to the south than Danecester was a 
great black district whose horizon glared at night 
with a hundred lurid fires. And there the de- 
ceased Mr. Renwick had owned strange-looking 
brick structures, like pyramids Avith the angles 
rounded off, and Avith smoke and flame issuing 
from their summits. Lady Alicia did not in- 
herit all the gold that Avas melted out of the iron 
ore in these grimy crucibles. Mr. ReuAvick had 
a numerous family by a former Avife, and had 
proA'ided for them all, handsomely. But his 
relict enjoyed an income Avhich Avould have ap- 


VERONICA. 


22 

peared princely in her maiden eyes, and which 
slie now characterized as “genteel starvation.” 
For there is nothing Ave become more easily ac- 
customed to than the possession of riches. And 
a genuine love of money is one of the few pas- 
sions that age, with its hollow voice crying “All 
is A-anity !” has no poAver to Aveaken. 

Lady Alicia Avas a tall, handsome, stiff old 
lady, Avho took a gloomy vieAV of life, and Avho 
had a good deal of Avit of a dry, bitter, biting 
flavor. 

Her ladyship’s entrance into the room Avas 
closely folloAved by that of a gentleman. Cap- 
tain feheardoAvn, after haA'ing greeted Lady Ali- 
cia, called to him, 

“ Come here, Hugh. I AA'ant to introduce you 
to the vicar of Shipley. Mr. Levincourt, this is 
my young friend Hugh LockAvood. You may 
haA'e heard me speak of his father. ” 

“Who is the gentleman ?” asked Lady Alicia, 
half aside, of Mrs. SheardoAA'n, and looking across 
the room as she spoke, Avith a not unfavorable 
glance. 

“Mr. Hugh LockAvood, Lady Alicia. You 
may remember, perhaps, that his father Avas a 
great protege of the old Admiral many, many 
years ago, that is, before I ever saAV my hus- 
band.” 

“Oh, ay, to be sure! I recollect it all A’ery 
Avell now. Robert LockAA'ood aa'us a Daneshire 
man born and bred. He came of humble folks, 
small tradespeople in Shipley Magna, but he had 
an aspiring soul, and he got it into his head that 
he Avas born to be a great painter. Admiral 
SheardoAvn had a taste for the arts, and helped 
the lad to an education. And that is his son, 
eh ? Not bad-looking ! ” 

Mrs. SheardoAvn explained in a fsAV AA’ords that 
Hugh’s father had done credit to his patron’s dis- 
crimination, and had attained a good position 
among British artists. Robert LockAvood had 
died some years ago. His son Avas articled pupil 
to an architect in London ; and haA'ing had oc- 
casion to visit Danecester on professional busi- 
ness, Captain Sheardown had invited the young 
man to stay for a feAV days at Lowater House. 

Presently arriA'ed Dr. Begbie, rector of Ham- 
mick, Avith his wife and daughter, and Miss 
Boyce, a lady Avho Avas staying at the rectory on 
a visit ; and these completed the number of in- 
vited guests. 

Betsy Boyce, as her friends and acquaintances 
called her, Avas a simpering, lively old lady Avho 
prided herself on her thorough knoAvledge of 
“society.” She Iwed in London Avhen she did 
not happen to be visiting at some country house. 
But her residence in the metropolis Avas never 
protracted ; and her address Avhen there Avas not 
revealed to many persons. She called cousins 
with half the names in the Peerage ; and indeed 
Miss Boyce found a phrase or two out of that 
august volume act as an “ open sesame” to many 
a comfortable home Avhere bed and board Avere 
at her service for as long as she chose to remain. 
She Avas herself perfectly good-humored and 
humble minded ; and, despite her eccentricities, 
she Avas liked and esteemed by those people who 
kneAv her best. But she had taken up the Peer- 
age as a kind of profession, just as some reA'erend 
Mussulman divine adopts the Koran. She lived 
by its aid very comfortably ; Avhereas Miss Eliza- 
beth Sophia Augusta Boyce, Avith very fcAV pounds 


per annum to oall her OAvn, and Avithout any aris- 
tocratic connections, Avould have found it a rather 
hard task to make both ends meet. “Besides, 
my dear,” she would say, confidentially, to some 
intimate friend, “I don’t really humbug any 
body. Papa and mamma were both thoroughly 
Aveli connected. It never did them any good that 
I knoAV of ; but you see it is a great mercy for 
me. If it Avere not for my family and my knoAvl- 
edge of Avho’s Avho, I might mope by myself in 
a dingy lodging from January to December. And 
for me, Avho am the most sociable creature living, 
and Avho detest solitude, it is really and truly a 
blessing and a most providential circumstance 
that there are persons Avho care very much for 
that kind of thing.” 

Miss Boyce, then, Avas not unduly proud of 
her descent, but she had a pet vanity, founded 
— as are not most of our vanities ? — on a much 
less real and solid basis of fact ; she had some- 
hoAv lost her reckoning of time, thought herself 
still an attractive-looking Avoman, and devoutly 
believed that mankind Avas deluded by her Avig. 

Captain SheardoAvn gallantly led out Lady 
Alicia ReuAvick to dinner, and the rest folloAved 
in due order. 

To old Mr. SnoAve, the bankei*, Avas allotted 
the honor of conducting Miss Boyce. Mr. SnoAve 
Avas a sloAV-Avitted, matter-of-fact man. His 
manner Avas pompous, and the habitual expres- 
sion of his heaA’y face seemed to say, Avith an air 
of puzzled surprise, “ God bless my soul 1 If I 
did not knoAv myself to be so very important a 
personage, I should suspect you to be laughing 
at me. ” 

During the early part of the dinner Mr. SnoAve 
Avas too honestly engrossed in eating and drink- 
ing to pay much attention to his neighbor ; but 
Avhen the later stages of the repast arrived he 
found himself compelled to observe Miss Boyce’s 
lavish coils of false hair, floAving curls, and colos- 
sal chignon. He became a prey to a species of 
fascination that obliged him to Avatch some deli- 
cate artificial flowers Avhich croAvned the lady’s 
head-gear, and which nodded, shook, and trem- 
bled, Avithout intei'mission, in dumb accompani- 
ment to their Avearer’s vivacious floAV of talk. 

Tlie dinner-party passed pleasantly under tlie 
genial influence of the host and hostess. When 
Dr. Begbie rose, and, in an effective speech, 
rolled out in his richest tones, proposed the 
health of his dear friends. Captain and Mrs. 
SheardoAvn, and Avished them many happy re- 
turns of that auspicious day, the general enthu- 
siasm Avas quite ardent. Even Lady Alicia de- 
sired the seiwant to All her glass a bumper, and 
grasped her host’s hand Avith her bony fingers 
as she tossed off the Champagne. 

Mrs. Begbie shed tears. But that may have 
been from habit: for Mrs. Begbie ahvays made 
a point of crying at her husband’s sermons. 
And perhaps his manly voice, alone, had poAver 
so to affect her. As compensation, hoAvever, 
Avhen Captain SheardoAvn returned thanks, Mrs. 
Begbie Avas perfectly dry-eyed. 

When the ladies left the table — by Avhich time 
Mr. SnoAve Avas openly and undisguisedly con- 
templating Miss Boyce’s luxuriant locks with a 
fixed and stony glare — and returned to the draAv- 
ing-room, they resumed a theme Avhich had been 
discussed at the dinner-table, and on Avhicli Lady 
Alicia and Betsy Boyce Avere the chief talkers. 


VERONICA. 


23 


“Gale? Gale?” said Miss Boyce, meditative- 
ly. “ No such name among the people I know, 
bii' John Gale ! Never heard of him.” 

“How very strange!” murmured Mrs. Eeg- 
bie. 

“But there must be some people, I suppose, 
of whom Miss Boyce never heard ?” said Lady 
Alicia. She spoke with a strong Scotch ac- 
cent, rolling her r’s A'ery much, and pronounced 
“never heard” “neverr harrd.” 

“Millions!” exclaimed Miss Boyce, abso- 
lutely squeaking in her desire to be emphatic. 
“Oh, millions ! Your ladyship’s married name, 
for instance, was quite unfamiliar to me, al- 
though I remember veiy well — that is, I have 
often heard mamma speak of your father. Lord 
Strathgorm. ” 

Lady Alicia smiled grimly. 

“Well,” said she, “my dear Miss Boyce, ye 
might very well remember poor papa yourself, 
for he only died in the spring of ‘ ’thirty.’ ” 

“Goodness!” exclaimed Miss Begbie, clasp- 
ing her hands. “ Suppose Sir John Gale should 
turn out to be an impostor! A highwayman, 
or something. No: 1 don’t mean a highway- 
man ; I believe there are no highwaymen now, 
but I mean a swindler, or something ; don’t you 
know ? Goodness ! ” 

“Nonsense, Emmy!” said Miss Begbie’s 
mamma. Veronica’s face looked unutterable 
scorn, but she said nothing. The hostess asked 
Miss Begbie to play for them, and that young 
lady complied, not unwillingly. She drew very 
good music out of the grand piano. Her mo- 
ther was complacent. Lady Alicia listened with 
a softened face. Betsy Boyce’s ringlets quiv- 
ered again as she nodded her head in time to a 
waltz of Chopin. Upon this peaceful scene the 
gentlemen entered in a body. Captain Shear- 
down took a seat beside Miss Boyce, and made 
her a few gallant speeches. 

“Go along, you false creature!” cried Miss 
Betsy, smiling and tossing her head. “Men 
were deceivers ever. One foot on sea, and one 
on shore. Exactly! And you sailor animals 
are the most faithless of all. But I always loved 
the bluejackets from a girl, from a mere child! 
I recollect a most charming creature with whom 
I once fell desperately in love. He was an Ad- 
miral of the Red, and had only one leg, and a 
frightful scar on his face where a cutlass had 
gashed one of his eyebrows in two. He was 
seventy-four, and I adored him. It was in Ire- 
land, at Delaney Park, in the year after — in 
short, I was a mere baby, not fifteen!” 

‘ ‘ At Delaney Park ? Really ! That was your 
grandpapa’s place, Maud, was it not?” asked 
]\Irs. Sheardown. 

“Possible! Are you of the Delaneys of De- 
laney, Miss Desmond? Ah, I remember the 
youngest girl married Sidney Desmond. To be 
sure ! The eldest, Hilda, made a great marriage 
at the end of her first season. Poor girl ! H’m, 
h’m, h’m ! What is she doing, poor Lady Tallis ? 
And where is she? No one hears or sees any 
thing of her now.” 

“We do not hear veiw often from my Aunt 
Hilda, ” said Maud, gravely. “ Do you Avant me 
to accompany that song of Schumann’s for you, 
Mr. Snowe?” 

Maud Avalked a^vay to the piano, and Betsy 
Boyce poured into the greedy ears of Mrs. Beg- 


bie and the old banker a recital of Lady Tallis's 
troubles. 

“It was considered a great match, the match 
of the year (excepting, of course, the young Earl 
of Miniver, who Avas, you knoAv, the richest 
minor in England, and married Lady Ermen- 
garde Ermine, the day after he came of age) ; 
and, I remember, poor old Sir William Delaney 
was so delighted. ” 

Mrs. Begbie, Avho was transported with delight 
at hearing her friend and visitor so fluent and fa- 
miliar Avith these noble names, shook her head 
gently, and said that that AA^as Avhat came of 
Avorldliness. And hoAV strange it was that pa- 
rents should seek heartless grandeur for their 
children ! Por her part, she feiwently trusted 
that Emmy Avould choose the better part, and 
look for sound principles in her husband, pre- 
ferring them to Avealth or rank. Though, on 
the score of birth (if Emmy were influenced hy * 
such mundane attractions), there Avere feAv fam- 
ilies to Avhose alliance she might not aspire, her 
grandfather on one side having been a Gaffer — 
and it Avas unnecessary to say that the Gaffers 
Avere among the feAv old Saxon families ex- 
tant — and her paternal great-grandmamma a De 
Wynkyn. 

‘ ‘ Hoav Avas it, then ?” asked ]\rr.*SnoAve, senior, 
in his pompous, deliberate tone. ‘ ‘ Do I folloAv 
you? Was Lady Tallis’s marriage an inauspi- 
cious one, hey ?” 

“Mercy on us!” cried Betsy Boyce. “In- 
auspicious! Hei; husband is one of the most 
dreadful persons ! Hilda Delaney Avas a pretty, 
good-natured fool Avhen he married her. It AA'as 
like the wolf and the lamh ; he gobbled her up 
in no time — crunched her bones.” 

“ LaAV !” exclaimed Miss Emmy. 

Mr. SnoAA'e cast a rolling and rather bewil- 
dered glance around. “That,” said he, im- 
pressLely, “is shocking, indeed.” 

“But hoAV do you mean, Miss Boyce?” said 
Emmy, who took things a little literally, and 
Avas excessively inquisitLe. “ Of course I know 
that Lady Tallis was not really gobbled up — he, 
he, he ! you haA’e such funny sayings — but AA'hat 
did her husband do ?” 

Herbert SnoAve’s song ceased at this moment, 
and the coiiA ersation at the other end of the room 
came to an abrupt close. 

Before the party broke up Mrs. Sheardown 
came and sat by the vicar of Shipley, and told 
him, smilingly, that she had a petition to prefer 
to him. She Avanted him to alloAv Maud to re- 
main at LoAvater for a feAV days. The captain 
and she Avould bring Maud in to Shipley AvUen 
they came to Church on Sunday; meanwhile 
tiiey Avould send to the vicarage for any thing 
she might need. In short, they had set their 
hearts on it, and Mr. LeAuncourt must ^not re- 
fuse. 

‘ ‘ I suspect you are not often accustomed to 
have any request of yours refused, IMrs. Shear- 
doAvn,” said the A’icar, gallantly. “ If Maud be 
Avilling — as, no doubt, she is — I consent AA'ith 
pleasure to her remaining. ” 

Presently, Maud made her AA'ay quietly across 
the room to Veronica. The latter Avas seated 
on a small ottoman, AA'hich Avas made to hold 
only tAvo persons, and Avas so contrived that one 
of its occupants must turn his back on the com- 
pany in the draAving-room Avhile the other faced 


24 


VERONICA. 


them. Veronica was leaning back against the 
crimson cushion. The dark rich back-ground 
enhanced the purity of her white dress and the 
pearly tints of her shoulders. Familiar as her 
beauty was to Maud, she yet paused an instant 
to look admiringly on the picture presented by 
the vicar’s daughter. Veronica was radiant 
with gratified vanity and the consciousness of 
being admired. It heightened the bloom on her 
cheek, and. made her eyes bright with a liquid 
lustre. 

As Maud approached, a gentleman, who had 
been occupying the other seat on the ottoman, 
rose to yield it to her. 

“Do* not let me disturb you,” said Maud. 
“I merely wished to say a word to Miss Levin- 
court.” 

The young man bowed, and walked a few 
paces apart. 

Maud told her friend of Mrs. Sheardown's in- 
vitation. 

A strange look passed over Veronica’s face. 
At first it seemed like a flash of satisfaction ; 
but then came an expression of regret ; almost, 
one would have said, of a momentary alarm. 
“Shall you stay, Maudie?” said she, taking the 
other girl’s hand in both her own. 

“ Uncle Chhrles has said that I may, and — 
But I will not stay, dear, if you think it selfish, 
or if you fancy you will miss .me.” 

“Of course I shall miss you, Maudie.” 

“ Then I won’t stay. I will tell Mrs. Shear- 
down so.” 

At this moment Emma Begbie came up to 
them, giggling after her manner, which was 
half spiteful, whole silly. 

“My goodness. Miss Levincourt!” she ex- 
claimed, bending over the ottoman, '■'■what a 
flirtation you have been having with that young 
Lockwood ! What is he like to talk to ?” 

“Very much like a gentleman,” answered 
Veronica, with cold hauteur. 

“ Oh gracious! But he isn’t really one, you 
know. Lady Alicia knows all about his father. 
He was quite a common person. But isn’t he 
handsome, this young man? You must mind 
what you are about if you stay in the same house 
with him. Miss Desmond, for I am sure Miss 
Levincourt would never forgive you if you were 
V to make yourself too agreeable to him. She 
evidently looks upon him as her conquest. 
Don’t you. Miss Levincourt ? lie, he, he!” 

Veronica looked after her scornfully as she 
went away. “What an ill-bred idiot that girl 
is!” she said. Then, after a moment, she add- 
ed, “ Of course I shall miss you, Maudie. But 
you must stay. You will not be away very 
long?” 

“ Only till Sunday. Was that gentleman who 
was talking to you Mr. Lockwood ? I had not 
been introduced to him.” 

“Yes. Good-night, Maudie. The fly is 
come, I suppose, for I see papa telegraphing 
across the room. Good-by.” 

Veronica threw herself back in a corner of the 
fly, wrapped in her warm shawl and hood, and 
remained silent. The vicar fell asleep. In about 
ten minutes their vehicle drew aside to allow an- 
other carriage to pass. It was the well-appointed 
equipage of the rector of Hammick. The horses 
dashed along swiftly, their silver-mounted har- 
ness glistening in the moonlight. 


Veronica drew still further back into her cor- 
ner and closed her eyes. But she did not sleep. 
Her brain was busy. And the jolting of the 
crazy old fly from the Crown Inn at Shipley 
Magna kept up a sort of rhythmic accompani- 
ment to the dance of strange fancies, hopes, and 
plans that whirled through her mind. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE GAUNTLET. 

Sir John Gale, after his first appearance in 
the vicar’s parlor, came daily to sit there. 

His afternoon visit became an established cus- 
tom, and, after the second time, it seemed as 
though he had been familiar there for years. 

He grew stronger very quickly. It was not 
long before he began to speak of departing. 
There seemed, indeed, to be no valid reason why 
he should linger at the vicarage. And yet he 
staid on. 

“I shall go abroad as soon as we have some 
assurance of milder weather,” he said to Mr. 
Levincourt. “Spring is delicious in Italy. I 
shall wait, however, until I hear that the Alps 
are not too impassable ; for, of all things, I de- 
test a sea voyage, and the two hours in the 
Channel are always worse to me than a week’s 
land traveling. Meanwhile — ” 

“Meanwhile, why not remain here?” said the 
vicar. “ There is no need for you to make a 
move until you set oft' for the south.” 

To this Sir John Gale replied that his intru- 
sion at Shipley vicarage had already been long 
enough ; that he should never forget his host's 
kindness, but it behooved him not to trespass on 
it too far ; that, although he certainly had no 
ties of friendship or relationship which specially 
claimed his presence just then in any other part 
of England, he must nevertheless make up his 
mind to say farewell to Shipley as soon as the 
doctor’s permission to travel could be obtained. 

All this, and more to the same purpose, said 
Sir John Gale. And yet he lingered on. 

The spring set in early, after a severe winter. 
By the beginning of April there came soft, bright 
days, with a southerly breeze which tempted the 
inmates of the vicarage forth from the house. 

Some such days immediately followed the din- 
ner-party at Mrs. Sheardown’s. 

One afternoon Sir John, beholding from his 
chamber window Miss Levincourt strolling in the 
garden, presently ventured forth to join her. 

“May I walk here. Miss Levincourt?” he 
asked, pausing at the threshold of the glass door 
that led into the garden. 

“ Oh, by all means! But is it sunny enough 
here ? The evergreens give a very damp shade. 
If you are not afraid to venture further, you 
would liave more warmth and a southern aspect 
there, beyond the gate.” 

So Veronica and her father’s guest wandered 
slowly on and on, looking out over the common 
dappled with cloud shadows, gazing at the far, 
hazy horizon, pausing now and again for a mo- 
ment, but still proceeding in their course until 
they reached the church-yard of St. Gildas. 

Sir John declared that the balmy air \vas a 
cordial that did him more good than any medi- 
cines. Still, warm as it was for the season, he 


VERONICA. 


dared not sit in the church-yard to rest, and, as 
he turned to go back, he was evidently tired. 

A frown darkened his face. “ I ought not to 
have come so far without Paul,” he said. “1 
am still so dev — so unaccountably weak.” 

“ It is my fault !” exclaimed Veronica. “Let 
me be Paul’s substitute.” She offered Sir John 
the support of her arm with perfect tact and 
self-possession, as though it were the most nat- 
ural and ordinary proceeding in the world. 

After that occasion the daily walk became a 
matter of course. 

The temporary absence of Miss Desmond from 
the vicarage was by no means regretted by Sir 
John. In truth, he did not like Maud. Some 
word to that effect escaped him in speaking to 
Veronica. 

“You must not say that to papa, Sir John,” 
said she, looking quietly up at him. 

“ Say what?” 

“That you do not like Miss Desmond.” 

“Of course not. I never said so to any one. 
It would be untrue. Miss Desmond is a very 
charming young lady, very charming and very 
young, and perhaps her youth explains a slight 
touch, the very slightest touch, of — self-sufficien- 
cy. We grow tolerant and skeptical as we get 
older. Helas!” 

‘ ‘ Maud is not self-sufficient. She is only very 
earnest and very honest.” 

“Miss Desmond is happy in having so w'arm 
and generous a friend. And pray do not accuse 
me of any want of respect for Miss Desmond. I 
have no doubt that she possesses the most ad- 
mirable qualities ; only her manner is a little — a 
little hard and chilly, if I may venture to say so. ” 

“At heart she is really verv impulsive.” 

“Is she?” 

“ But she has great self-command in general,” 

“I am bound to say that she must have. Any 
thing less impulsive than Miss Desmond’s man- 
ner 1 have seldom seen. But forgive me. I will 
not say another word that shall even seem like 
disparagement of one for whom you entertain so 
warm an affection.” 

Sir John spoke with a winning deferential soft- 
ness of manner, and looked with undisguised ad- 
miration into the beautiful face by his side. 

Such looks were now not rare on his part. 
Veronica, in her retrospective meditations, could 
recall many such glances ; could recall, too, 
many soft words, so soft as to be almost tender, 
spoken in her ear during the afternoon stroll in 
meadow or garden. She Avas flattered and touch- 
ed by the deference toAvard herself of this man, 
Avhose character she perceh^ed to be imperious, 
almost arrogant, to the rest of the Avorld. 

Others had been admiring and deferential be- 
fore noAV. Mr, PleAv Avculd endure her scornful 
raillery Avith abject submission ; but then Mr. 
PleAv Avas habitually submissive to every one, 
and Avas, after all (she reflected), a very insig- 
nificant individual indeed. 

That young man, that Mr. LockAvood, the 
otlier evening had shoAvn himself very sensible to 
the fascinations of her brightness and her beauty, 
lie AA^as not abject, truly. No ; he Avas manly 
and modest, and he looked, and spoke, and 
moved in a Avay Avhich shoAved that he thought 
himself the equal of any one among Captain 
Sheardown’s guests. Nevertheless, in Veroni- 
ca’s apprehension, he Avas not so. Although she 


had chosen to put down Emma Begbie’s ill- 
breeding, she had been, to a certain degree, mor- 
tified by her contemptuous tone. 

Sir John Gale was a different kind of person 
from this young Lockwood, Avhose father had 
been educated by the bounty of Admiral Shear- 
doAvn. 

To be “ my Lady Gale !” 

The Avords rang in her ears. She Avhispered 
them to herself in the solitude of her chamber. 
Wealth, station, and all that AA'as alluring to the 
girl’s vanity and ambition, were in the sound. 

In those earliest years of existence during 
Avhich, as some think, the deepest and most abid- 
ing impressions are made on the character, the 
ideal of happiness held up before Veronica’s eyes 
Avas an essentially ignoble one. The possession 
of such delights as may be summed up in the 
vulgar Avord “finery” she was directly or indi- 
rectly taught to look upon as an aim to be at- 
tained. As she grew older, and the life that lay 
before her in Shipley -in-the-Wold became clear 
to her apprehension, an eating discontent took 
hold upon her like a slow poison. At times, in 
recalling her mother’s stories of her young days 
in Florence, a passion of envy and longing Avould 
make the girl’s heart sick Avithin her. Not that 
those things Avhich had made Stella Barletti gay 
and happy Avould have altogether satisfied her 
daughter. The latter had more pride and less 
simplicity. Stella liked to “far figura,” as the 
Italian phrase goes ; to make a figure in the 
Avorld. But her ambition never soared on a very 
daring Aving. She was perfectly contented to 
accept Russian hospodaresses laden Avith eme- 
ralds, or eA^en Princesses Della Scatoli da Salsa, 
croAvned Avith paste diamonds and enameled Avith 
effrontery, as her social superiors, and to enjoy 
the spectacle of their real or sham splendors ex- 
actly as she enjoyed the spangles and tinsel of 
the ballet in carnival. 

Not so Veronica. She AA'Ould Avillingly be sec- 
ond to none. There Avere moments Avhen the 
chance mention of Maud Desmond’s family, or 
an allusion to the glories of the ancestral man- 
sion at Delaney, made her sore and jealous. She 
Avould eA'en be rendered irritably impatient by 
Maud’s simple indifference on the score of her 
ancestry ; though the least display of pride of 
birth on the part of her father’s Avard Avould have 
been intolerable to Veronica’s haughty spirit. 

Yet Veronica was no monster of selfish con- 
sistency. She Avas often visited by better im- 
pulses and a longing for a nobler aim in life. 
But the first shock of practical effort and self- 
denial repulsed her like a douche of ice-cold Ava- 
ter. There came no reaction, no after-glow, and 
she shrank back shivering, Avith a piteous cry of, 
“I can not be good.” 

She knew herself to be Avretchedly dissatisfied. 
And, although her youth and bodily health at 
intervals asserted their elasticity^, and broke forth 
into a wild floAV of gayety and good spirits, she 
Avas yet, at nineteen years old, secretly consumed 
by dreary discontent. 

Then she told herself that it AV'as easy for hap- 
py people to be good. “ If I Avere but happy, I 
should be good and kind and generous,” she 
said. 

And latterly the thought had taken possession 
of her that it Avould make her happy to become 
my Lady Gale. 


VERONICA. 


2G 

Opportunity is the divinity which shapes the 
ends of most love affairs, let them be rough-hewn 
how they will. Under the favoring influence of 
residence beneath the same roof, daily walks to- 
gether, and evenings spent in each other’s soci- 
ety, the intimacy between the vicar’s daughter 
and the stranger sojourning in her father’s house 
grew rapidly. The disparity of age between 
them ofl'ered no obstacle to the familiarity of 
their intercourse. 

There are some men who accept the advance 
of age, and even make a step to meet it ; there 
are others who painfully and eagerly fend it off ; 
again, there are some who simply ignore it. To 
this latter category belonged Sir John Gale. 
You could not say that he indulged in any undue 
affectation of juvenility. He merely seemed to 
take it for granted that such affectation would 
have been entirely superfluous. 

From the first moment of seeing Veronica he 
had been struck by her remarkable beauty. And 
not the least attraction in his eyes was the con- 
trast between her character and her position. 

“Who the deuce would have dreamed of find- 
ing svich a girl as that in an English country 
parsonage !” he said to himself. 

In their conversations together Veronica had 
spoken of her mother’s early life, and had not 
attempted to conceal her own longing to quit 
Shipley-in-the-Wold, and Daneshire altogether, 
for other and brighter scenes. He had noted, 
with a sort of cynical good-humor, the girl’s as- 
piration after wealth and display; her restless 
discontent with the obsciu’ity of the vicarage ; 
the love of admiration which it required no very 
acute penetration to discover in her. But these 
traits of character were by no means distasteful 
to Sir John. Coupled with a plain face or an 
awkward manner they would have — not disgust- 
ed so much as — bored him. United to rare 
beauty and a quick intelligence they amused and 
attracted him. And then, to complete the spell, 
came that crowning charm without which all the 
rest would have wasted their sweetness on Sir 
John Gale: the fact that this young, brilliant, 
and beautiful girl desired very unmistakably to 
be pleasing in his eyes. 

If she be not fair for me. 

What care I how fair she be? 

might have been said, and said truly, by the 
baronet, respecting the loveliest woman ever cast 
in mortal mould. Time and self-indulgence, in 
proportion as they had indurated his heart, had 
rendered his egotism more and more keenly sens- 
itive. 

It gratified his egotism to be, from Avhatever 
cause, an object of attention to Veronica. He 
cared not to ask himself whether she would have 
lowered her beautiful eyes to have regarded him 
for an instant had he been poor and obscure. 
His wealth and rank were part of himself; in- 
separable from that capital I, which filled up for 
him so large a space in God’s universe. 

“The girl would make a furore if she were 
known,” he said to himself. “Her coloring, 
hair, and eyes are perfect. And she has spirit 
enough for Lucifer!” 

Nevertheless he had not gauged the height of 
Veronica’s ambition. 

Day by day, and hour by hour, the attraction 
exercised over him by her beauty grew stronger. 


I “You are not such a votaiy of Mrs. Grundy 
! as your friend,” he said to her one day. 

“As Maud?” answered Veronica, laughing. 
Then she continued, with a disdainful toss of her 
head, “No, truly; I suppose my Italian blood 
renders me incapable of worshiping at that shrine. 
Dio mio I Life is so short ! And so little sweet ! 
Why embitter it voluntarily with Mrs. Grundy ? ’ 

“Yet in your heart — confess now — j’^ou are a 
little afraid of her ?” 

“I might answer you as you answered Maud : 
am I a pickpocket to be afraid of the police- 
man ?” 

‘ ‘ Miss Desmond’s retort did not hit the case. 
The policeman merely administers laws : Mrs. 
Grundy makes them.” 

“ She shall make none for me,” said Veronica, 
looking very handsome in her scorn. 

Sir John gazed upon her cuiiously ; but he 
said no more at that time. The subject, how- 
ever, seemed to have a peculiar attraction for 
him, and he returned to it frequently. 

On the Friday morning preceding the Sunday 
fixed for Maud’s return home there came a let- 
ter to the vicar from his ward. The purport of 
it was, to ask his leave to stay a short time lon- 
ger at Lowater House. There was to be a con- 
cert at Danecester, to which Mrs. Sheardown 
had promised to take her. At the end of the 
letter were a few words about Hugh Lockwood. 

“ Do you know. Uncle Charles,” wrote Maud, 
“that Mr. Lockwood knows my Aunt Hilda? 
He heard accidentally that I was a niece of Lady 
Tallis, and he then mentioned that he and his 
mother had made her acquaintance at a water- 
ing-place three or four years ago ; and that Mrs. 
Lockwood and my aunt became quite intimate. 
They have not seen her for a long time ; but .she 
promised to let them know whenever she came 
to London. I can not have seen Aunt Hilda 
since I was seven years old, when she came one 
day to see poor mamma ; yet my recollection of 
her is a correct one, for Mr. Lockwood describes 
her as a small, slight woman with delicate feat- 
ures and beautiful eyes. This is just what I 
remember. Only he says she is now sadly 
faded.” 

“Dear me!” said the vicar, “odd enough 
that these Lockwoods should have come across 
Lady Tallis! Here is a postscript for you, Ve- 
ronica, asking you to send back some dress or 
other by Captain Sheardown’s man; .See to it, 
will you ?” Then the vicar, having handed his 
daughter the letter, went away to his study. 

Veronica read the letter from beginning to 
end. She read it more than once. There was 
a good deal in it about that Hugh Lockwood, 
she thought. She remembered what Mi.ss Beg- 
bie had said about him, and her lip curled. She 
care for the attentions of such a one as JMr. 
Hugh Lockwood ! Emma Begbie should change 
her tone some day. Pazienza! 

Veronica got together the articles for which 
Maud had asked, and as she did so she scarce- 
ly knew whether she were glad or sorry that 
Maud was going to remain a while longer at 
Lowater House. 

“Dear old Maudie ! I hope she will enjoy 
herself.” Then she wondered what Maud would 
say to her daily walk with Sir John Gale, and 
whether Maud would perceive the growing devo- 
tion of his manner toward herself. And then 


VERONICA. 


27 


slie looked in the glass with a triumphant smile, 
lint in a moment the blood rushed up to her 
brow, and she turned away impatiently. Was 
she afraid in her secret heart, as Sir John had 
said ? No ; not afraid of the gossiping malice 
of the world ; not afraid of Mrs, Grundy. But 
she had a latent dread of Maud’s judgment. 
JNIaud had such a lofty standard, such a pure 
ideal. Bah ! People all wished to be happy ; 
all strove and struggled for it. She, Veronica, 
was at least honest to herself. She did not gild 
her motives with any fine names. She longed 
to be happy in her own way, instead of pretend- 
ing to be happy in other people’s way. 

That very afternoon. Sir John Gale announced 
that Mr. Blew had told him he might quite safe- 
ly venture to travel. He made the communica- 
tion to Veronica as they stood side by side lean- 
ing over the low wall of St. Gildas’s church-yard, 
and looking at the moss-grown graves, all vel- 
vety and mellow under the slanting rays of the 
declining sun. 

“IMr, Blew was very hard and cruel,” said 
Sir John, in a low' voice. “ Very hard and inex- 
orable. I tried to hint to him that my strength 
was not yet sufliciently recovered to render my 
taking a journey a safe experiment. But it was 
in vain. Was he not cruel ?” 

Veronica stood still and silent, supporting her 
elbow on the low wall of the grave-yard, and 
leaning her cheek on her hand. 

“Was he not cruel, Veronica?” 

His voice sank to a whisper as he uttered her 
name, and drawing neai'er, he took the unoccu- 
pied hand that hung listlessly by her side. 

Her heart beat quickly; a hundred thoughts 
seemed to whirl confusedly through her brain. 
But she stood immovably steady, Avith her eyes 
still turned toward the green grave-yard. 

“ I — I don’t knoAv. I suppose — I should think 
not. You ought to be glad to be Avell enough to 
go aAvay. ” 

He drcAv yet nearer, and pressed the hand that 
lay passive in his clasp, 

“ You think it natural to be glad to leave Ship- 
ley ?” 

“ Very natural.” 

'“You hate this place and this life. I haA'e 
seen hoAv uncongenial all your surroundings are 
to you. You are like some bright tropical bird 
carried aAvay from his native sunshine, and caged 
under a leaden sky. Leave it, and fly aAvay into 
the sunshine!” 

“ That is easily said !” 

“You are not angry?” he asked, eagerly, as 
she made a move to Avalk back tOAvard the house. 

“Why should I be angry? But the sun is 
sinking fast, and papa Avill expect me. We had 
better return to the house.” 

“ Stay yet an instant ! This may be our last 
AA'alk together. What Avould papa do if you did 
not return home at all ?” 

“ Really I do not see the use of discussing so 
absurd an hypothesis.” 

“ Not at all absurd. It must happen some day,” 

“There is Catherine at the gate, looking for 
us. I must go back,” 

“Ah, Veronica, you are angry Avith me !” 

“No.” 

“Then it is the shadoAV of Mrs, Grundy that 
has darkened your face. Why does she come 
betw'een poor mortals and the sunshine ?” 


“ Nonsense I” 

“I told you that you Avere afraid of Mrs. 
Grundy in your heart.” 

“And I told you that you Avere mistaken.” 

They had been Avalking toAvard the house, side 
by side, but apart, and had by this time reached 
the little iron Avicket Avhich gave access to the 
laAvn. Here Sir John paused, and said, softly : 
“Well, I have been obedient. I have come 
home ; or rather, you came, and I folloAved. 
Berhaps there Avas no great merit in that. But, 
Veronica, if you are not angry that I have dared 
to call you so, give me a token bf forgive- 
ness. ” 

“I haA’e told you that I am not angry.” 

“Yes ; but you say so with your face turned 
aAvay. Not one look ? See — that glove that you 
are pulling ofi’ — give me that.” 

“Bray, Sir John!” murmured Veronica, hur- 
rying up the gravel path, “I request that you 
Avill not touch my hand. The serA’ant is there, 
within sight.” 

‘ ‘ The glove, then ! Fling it doAvn as a gage 
of defiance to Mrs. Grundy, if you refuse to give 
it as a token of pardon to me !” 

She ran past him quickly, up the steps and 
into the house. 

As she entered it a little broAvn glove fluttered 
in the air and fell at the feet of Sir John Gale. 

• O 

CHABTER XI. 

SIR JOHN IS DISCUSSED. 

During the first four or five years of Maud 
Desmond’s stay at Shipley, Lady Tallis had 
Avritten several times to Mr. LeAincourt, asking 
neAvs of her niece, and pouring out tidings of 
her OAvn troubles and injuries in long, tangled 
skeins of sentences, wherein verbs and their 
nominative cases Avere inA’olved together in inex- 
tricable confusion. Moreover, as she Avrote Avith 
very pale ink, on very thin paper, and crossed 
each page of Avriting, the trouble of deciphering 
her epistles speedily became a greater one than 
Mr. Levincourt Avas Avilling to give himself. 

Her ladyship's mode of expressing herself Avas 
singularly enigmatical. This did not arise from 
any intention of being mysterious, but simply 
from Avhat the A’icar styled “ puzzle-headedness,” 
and from a conception of the grammatical con- 
struction of the English language considerably 
at A’ariance Avith the best authorities. 

Lady Tallis inA’ariably Avrote of her husband 
as “he.” ThisAvas intelligible until some other 
male individual requiring the same personal pro- 
noun appeared in the letter. But Avhen that 
other individual — Avhoever he might be — had to 
be mentioned, the difficulty of distinguishing the 
“he's” became considerable. 

Add to this that every word Avhich could be 
abbreviated Avas cut doAvn to tAvo or three let- 
ters : “ Avhich” becanife wh, “your” yr, “morn- 
ing” mrg, and so forth. As though time and 
letter-paper Avere so inestimably precious to the 
Avriter that they must be economized at all haz- 
ards. Though, in truth, she had quite as much 
both of the one and the other as she kneAv Avhat 
to do Avith. 

Mr. Levincourt would glance at the beginning 
and the end, and then Avould fold up the letter, 


28 


VERONICA. 


saying to himself, as he placed it in his desk, 
that he ^^•ould read it carefully ‘ ‘ by-and-by. ” 

As years went on the communications be- 
tween Lady Tallis and the family at the vicar- 
age grew rarer and rarer. Her ladyship was 
traveling about. The town-house was let on a 
long lease. Her address was uncertain. It be- 
came more and more apparent — or would have 
become so to any one taking the trouble to con- 
sider the poor lady’s epistles with patience and 
sympathy — that her married life was wretched. 
!She would, she said, veiy gladly have received 
her niece 'for a while, but “circumstances for- 
bade her doing so.” What those circumstances 
were, the vicar knew with tolerable accuracy. 

Veronica, too, had learned from her mother 
more of Lady Tallis’s history than was known 
to Maud. Mrs. Levincourt had often expressed 
her contempt for Lady Tallis’s weakness in sub- 
mitting to be crushed and tyrannized over by 
her husband, and had said that the woman must 
be an imbecile. 

Veronica was inclined to think so too. 

Occasionally Maud had spoken of her aunt to 
the vicar. “I should like to see Aunt Hilda,” 
she had said. “ fehe is the only one left of dear 
mamma’s relatives. And I know mamma loved 
her very much.” 

Then the vicar had explained that although 
Mrs. Desmond loved her sister, she by no means 
loved or esteemed her sister’s husband ; and that 
there was no possibility of JMaud’s desire to 
see her aunt being gratified, unless Lady Tallis 
should come to Shipley-in-the-Wold. 

Once Maud had said a few words to Veronica 
on the subject. 

“I can understand plainly,” said she, “that 
poor Aunt Hilda is very harshly treated, and very 
much to be pitied. During dear mamma’s life- 
time I was, of course, too mere a child to know 
any thing about it. I remember once Aunt Hil- 
da came to see mamma ; and she cried and talked 
very excitedly, and mamma sent me out of the 
room. ” 

“I think,” answered Veronica, “that Lady 
Tallis’s history may be summed up in a few words. 
She was good-natured and weak. Her husband 
was bad-natured and strong. Ecco !” 

“But I wonder why he does not love her! 
Aunt Hilda had beauty and gentle birth, and a 
kind, sweet nature.” 

“I believe, Maud, that men love what amuses 
them. Now it is possible to be handsome, and 
well-born, and good-natured, and yet to bore peo- 
ple to death. ” 

When, during the first day of her stay at Lo- 
water House, Maud discovered that Mr. Lock- 
Avood knew her aunt, she asked him many ques- 
tions about her. 

“I am unfortunately not able to tell you as 
much of Lady Tallis as my mother would be,” 
answered Hugh Lockwood. 

“ Mrs. Lockwood and my aunt were quite inti- 
mate, were they not ?” » 

“They lived in the same boarding-house at 
Torquay for some time. My mother was an in- 
valid, and had been advised to go to Devonshire 
for the winter. Lady Tallis was there alone ; so 
was my mother ; and they found each other’s so- 
ciety more congenial than that of the rest of the 
people in the house.” 

“ And Aunt Hilda was quite alone?” 


“ Quite alone. At first we supposed her to be 
a widow ; but after a short time she became very 
confidential with my mother, and explained that 
her husband was still living, but that — that — her 
marriage was not a fortunate or happy one. You 
must understand. Miss Desmond,” proceeded 
Hugh, seeing Maud’s countenance fall and the 
color flush into her cheek, “that Lady Tallis 
volunteered this statement. My mother, how- 
ever, has a singular power of winning confidence. 
It has more than once happened to her to receive 
the most curious particulars of their private his- 
tory from almost total strangers. I think that if 
you knew her you would not distrust her.” 

“I never distrust people,” answered Maud, 
looking up candidly into his face. Then a 
thought came into her mind, and she added, 
hastily, “Not quite never ; of course I am bound 
in conscience to own that there are some faces, 
and especially some voices, which inspire me 
with distrust, perhaps unjustly.” 

She was sitting alone with her hostess next 
evening before dinner. The twilight still strug- 
gled with the blaze of the fire. It was that 
peaceful hour between day and night when old 
people are apt to dream of the past, and young 
people of the future. 

“Maud,” said Mrs. Sheardown, “do you 
know when your guardian’s guest is to take his 
departure ?” 

“Not certainly. As soon as he was well 
enough to travel, he said, when I left the vicar- 
age. That is vague, of course. But I should 
think he might go by this time.” 

“ That sounds a little like ‘ I wish he would go. ’ ” 

“Does it?” 

“You don’t like this Sir John Gale, Maud. 
Have you any reason for not liking him, or has 
he one of those faces or voices which inspire you 
with distrust? I’ll make a confession, IMaud. 
I have a strange distrust of this man, and with 
less excuse than you ; for I have never spoken 
to nor even seen him. It is one of what I call 
my presentiments, and what Tom calls my un- 
reasonable feminine prejudices I I wish the man 
were fairly aAvay out of the vicarage. Does iMr. 
Levincourt like him ?” 

“ Very much. Uncle Charles finds him amus- 
ing, and able to talk upon subjects which my 
guardian seldom has an opportunity of discuss- 
ing.” 

“And Miss Levincourt — does she like him 
too?” 

“Oh — Yes; I think so.” 

“That he admires her is a matter of course. 
She is very handsome.” 

“ Veronica has the most beautiful face I know. ” 

“Yes, she is strikingly handsome. Our young 
friend, Hugh Lockwood, was quite captivated by 
her beauty the other evening.” 

“Yes.” 

“ I warned him not to bum his wings, for I 
do not think a poor man would have much chance 
with jMiss Levincourt.” 

“ N — no — I don’t know.” 

“ I don’t say that she would be deliberately 
mercenary — only — only I don't think she would 
happen to fall in love with a poor man.” 

“Dear Mrs. Sheardown, I always cite you as 
one of the most just persons I know. But— 
don’t be angry with me — I do think you are a 
little unjust to \’eronica.” 


VERONICA. 


2 !) 


“ Am I ? I will tiy not to be, Maudie.” 

“ It would seem presumptuous in me to talk 
to you in this way, only that I, of course, know 
Veronica so thoroughly. She has fine quali- 
ties; indeed she has.” 

“ She has, at all events, one good quality, 
which I am willing to admit ; she is fond of you, 
I truly believe.” 

“ Indeed she is, Mrs. Sheardown. And you 
don’t know how I try her. I lecture her and 
scold her sometimes terribly. And you know 
I am two years younger than she is. And yet 
she bears it all so well. I am sure that if Ve- 
ronica loved only flatterers she would detest me.” 

“ Who is it that does not detest Miss Des- 
mond?” demanded Captain Sheardown, enter- 
ing the room at this moment with Mr. Hugh 
Lockwood. 

“Never mind,” returned his wife; “the ref- 
erence you heard on coming in concerned neither 
you nor Mr. Lockwood. ” 

“We have been to Shipley-in-the-Wold, Nel- 
ly.” 

“ What took you to Shipley-in-the-Wold ?” 

“ Captain Sheardown was kind enough to go, 
partly on my account,” said Hugh. “ I wanted 
to have a look at the church there ; and as we 
are to go to Danecester for the Sunday service 
at the cathedral, I thought I might not have 
another opportunity of seeing St. Hildas, which 
is curious, and very complete in its way.” 

“ Had I known we were going to Shiplfey, 
Miss Desmond,” said the captain, “I should 
have asked if you had any commands to give 
me. But we only made up our minds to push 
on when we were already a good mile on tlie 
road. This young gentleman found my descrip- 
tion of St. Gildas’s church irresistibly attract- 
ive. He was rather disappointed when I told 
him I was going to call at the vicarage. But he 
consoled himself with the hope that Miss Levin- 
court might not be at home.” 

“I assure you, Mrs. Sheardown,” said Hugh, 
turning to his hostess with a vehement earnest- 
ness that made her smile — “I assure you that I 
did not even know, until we were within sight 
of the vicarage house, that Miss Levincourt lived 
there. If I had been told, I had forgotten.” 

“Did you see Uncle Charles?” asked Maud 
of Captain Sheardown. 

“ No ; there was no one at home. The vicar 
was at llaymoor on parish business, and I\liss 
Levincourt was out walking.” 

“Then,” continued Maud, “you did not see 
Veronica ?” 

“Stop a bit! We had left our cards at the 
vicarage, and had walked to St. Hildas and thor- 
oughly inspected that very squat specimen of 
Saxon architecture — oh yes, I dare say it isn’t 
Saxon at all, Hugh ; but never mind ! — Miss Des- 
mond does not know any better! — and we were 
crossing the church-yard, when whom should w’e 
see but Miss Levincourt and Sir — Sir — what is 
the man’s name ?” 

“ Sir John Gale,” said his wife, gravely. 

‘ ‘ Of course ! Sir J ohn Gale ! Hugh saw them 
first.” 

“Miss Levincourt wore a red cloak, and the 
color caught my eye,” Hugh explained. 

“Something caught your eye? Yes, and 
fixed it, moreover! For it was your intense 
gaze that made me look in the direction of the 


common. And there I saw Miss Levincourt 
and Sir Thingumbob strolling along arm in 
arm.” 

“ The dressing-bell has rung, Tom,” said Mrs. 
Sheardown, rising from her chair. 

“All right, Nelly. But I was surprised to 
see such a young-looking man! I fancied he 
was quite an old fogy ! ” 

“ No,” said Maud, “he is not what one would 
call an old fogy. Did Veronica see you. Cap- 
tain Sheardown ?” 

“We walked half across the common to have 
the honor of accosting Miss Levincourt. Hugh 
sacrificed his inclination to a sense of politeness. 
Miss Veronica received us very graciously, want- 
ed us to go back to the vicarage ; but Sir John 
looked uncommonly black. I don’t think he 
half liked being interrupted in his tete-a-tete. 
And upon my word — ” 

“P/ease go and dress, Tom,” interrupted 
Mrs, Sheardown. “And you, too, Mr. Lock- 
wood. You will both be late as it is.” 

While the captain was finishing his toilet 
his wife came into his dressing-room, and said, 
“Oh you blundering, tiresome Tom !” 

“What have I done now?” asked Captain 
Sheardown, wheeling round with a huge hair- 
brush in each hand. 

“I didn’t want you to talk about that man 
before iMaud.” 

‘ ‘ What man ?” 

“That Sir John Gale.” 

“Why upon earth shouldn’t I?” 

“ Well, it does not so much matter your 
speaking about him as coupling his name with 
Veronica’s. It makes Maud uneasy. I always 
knew Veronica to be a flirt ; but, upon my word, 
I think her conduct with this man passes all 
limits. What is the vicar about ? He knows 
nothing whatever of this man with whom he lets 
his daughter wander about the country.” 

“Gently, Nelly! They were not wandering 
about the country. They were taking an after- 
noon stroll within sight of her father’s house. ” 

“ It’s all the same !” 

“Not quite, my dear.” 

“Tom, would you like your daughter to do 
so?” 

“My dear Nellv, if vou are speaking serious- 
ly-” 

“ Quite seriously.” 

“Then, seriously, I think you are making a 
mountain of a mole-hill. The man is not a pleas- 
ant-looking fellow, though I suppose he is hand- 
some after a firshion. Neither v.as he particu- 
larly civil in his manner. I dare say he thinks 
himself a very magnificent three-tailed bashaw. 
But, after all, neither his looks nor his manners 
constitute a crime. And if the vicar and his 
daughter are satisfied, I don’t think we have any 
business to object.” 

“ Why should Sir John Gale linger at Shipley ? 
He is quite well enough to travel. IMaud was 
saying — ” 

“Oh, it is Maud who has been putting this 
into your head ?” 

‘ ‘ No. But she distrusts and dislikes the man. 
I am not fond of Veronica Levincourt; but I 
can not help feeling that I ought to hold out a 
hand of womanly help to her — ought to give her 
a word of counsel. The girl is motherless, and, 
in spite of all her self-confidence, we must re- 


30 


VERONICA. 


member that she is but nineteen. I wish I had 
invited her here with IVIaud ! But, to say the 
truth, I was afraid of Hugh Lockwood getting 
entangled by her. He was greatly taken with 
her beauty. And her love of admiration would 
lead her to encourage him without the smallest 
compunction.” 

“Well, my dear child,” said the captain; 
“ this Sir John Gale will be gone in a few days, 
and—” 

“Is he going?” 

“Yes, to be sure! Oh, I forgot to tell you. 
His man — a little foreign fellow, who opened the 
door to us at the vicarage — said that his master 
would be leaving Shipley at the end of the week. ” 

“ Oh, how relieved and glad I am ! You stu- 
pid boy, not to tell me that, the very first thing !” 

‘ ‘ So you see, you need not attempt the very 
disagreeable duty of giving a word of counsel to 
Miss Levincourt.” 

“Disagreeable enough! And ten to one I 
should have done no good by it. Well, Sir J ohn 
is going, and it is all smooth. Maud will be de- 
lighted to get rid of him. ” 

“ I can not understand why you two should 
take such a hatred to the man, though ! As for 
you, Mrs. Nelly, you know simply nothing what- 
ever about him. He may be a model of manly 
virtue for any thing you can tell. ” 

“I hardly think that a boon companion of 
Lord George Segrave’s is likely to be that ! But 
I am willing to allow him every virtue under the 
sun, if he will only relieve Shipley vicarage of his 
presence. ” 

“There’s the dinner-bell. Come along, you 
illogical, prejudiced, unreasonable — dear little 
woman ! ” 

— — — o- 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE VICAR IS NOT ALARMED. 

Rain, rain, rain ! It poured down on the 
open roads. It jDlashed and dripped from gutter 
and gargoyle. It sank deep into the miry up- 
lands, and covered the marsh-rushes on the wide 
flats with beaded pearls. 

The sun went down amidst clouds that looked 
like dun smoke reddened by the reflex of a dis- 
tant conflagration. 

Splash, splash, from the slated eaves came the 
water-drops on to the evergreens outside the sit- 
ting-room window at Shipley vicarage. Splash, 
splash, splash ! 

The log hissed in the chimney. They always 
crowned their coal fire with a log of wood at the 
vicarage of an evening. It was a custom which 
Stella Levincourt had brought with her from 
foreign parts. She said she liked the smell of 
the wood. 

Not that the pungent, acrid odor was grateful 
in her nostrils ; not that the blue flame leaped 
brighter than the deep glow from the steady coal ; 
no, not for these reasons did the economical 
housewife (who had learned to cherish a six- 
pence with the lingering grip that had been wont 
to caress her Tuscan paul) insist on the ex- 
travagance of a log of wood upon the evening 
fire. 

It was the memory of her youth that she loved, 
and to which she offered this burnt -sacrifice! 
Phantoms of old days revisited her in the pale 


gray smoke that curled up on her hearth-stone, 
like" the smoke of the Tuscan fires, far away. 

And the custom survived her. It was con- 
tinued on the same ostensible ground as that on 
which she had commenced it. The vicar “liked 
the smell of the wood.” Veronica “ thought the 
bright flame so much prettier than the nasty coal- 
gas, that flared, and glared, and scorched one.” 

The vicar of Shipley-in-the Wold sat alone by 
his hearth. He was depressed, and a little out 
of humor. His guest had left him, and the 
vicar missed his evening chat. 

Maud was still at Lowater, and Veronica had 
gone to pay a long-promised visit to old Mrs. 
Plew, the surgeon’s mother. 

“Mrs. Plew has asked me to drink tea with 
her so often,” Veronica had said. “I ought to 
go. I will walk over there after the afternoon 
practice in the school-room.” 

The vicar had made no opposition at the time. 
But now that he was alone he began to think 
himself hardly used. Veronica could stay at 
home, evening after evening, while there was a 
stranger in the house. But she cared nothing 
for her father’s society. She never considered 
that he might feel solitary. She had declared 
herself to be moped to death, and so had gone 
out to seek a change. Selfish, selfish ! How 
selfish and inconsiderate people were ! 

Splash, splash, splash, fell the drops from the 
slates of the roof. On the garden the spring 
rain was falling, fine and close. Now and again 
came the west wind, flying fast, and with a swoop 
of his wings scattered the trembling drops, and 
dashed them against the window-panes. 

Each time that the vicar heard the rain pat- 
tering against the glass he looked up from his 
book and moved uneasily in his chair. Some- 
times he stirred the fire. Sometimes he moved 
his reading-lamp. Once he rose, went to the 
window, drew back tlie curtains, and put his face 
close to the glass. There was not much to be 
seen. As his e^^es got used to the darkness he 
could distinguish the outline of the old yew-tree, 
solidly black, against the vague, shadow-like 
clouds. A wet, stormy night! How would 
Veronica get home? Joe Dowsett had gone 
to Shipley Magna to buy com, or the vicar 
would have made him take a mackintosh and 
water-proof shoes to his young mistress. He 
could not send either of the women out in this 
weather. Then he sighed, and went back to his 
chair and his book. 

In the kitchen old Joanna was knitting a 
coarse gray stocking, feeling rather than seeing 
her work ; and Catherine, Avith the solitary can- 
dle drawn close to her, was trimming a smart 
cap. 

“ How solitary-like the house seems now !” ex- 
claimed the latter, after having plied her needle 
for some time in silence. 

“Quiet,” responded Joanna, briefly. 

“Oh, quiet enough! But for that matter it 
Avarn’t never noisy. I like a little life in a place. 
ISomehow, Sir John being hei’e, and Paul, Ih'- 
ened us up a bit.” 

“You’ve a queer notion of liA'eliness, Cathe- 
rine. It Avas more like deadliness a deal for one 
Avhile! And very nigh being deadliness, too.” 
The old Avoman nodded her head in grim satis- 
faction at her joke. 

“ Well, but there Avas something going on all 


VERONICA. 


the time. Not but what Paul gave us little 
enough of his company ; and as for Sir .John, I 
didn’t hardly set eyes on him from week’s end 
to week’s end.” 

“No great loss, neither!” 

“Laws, Joanna, why are you so set agin’ Sir 
John ? I’m sure he was quite a handsome-look- 
ing gentleman for his time of life. And be- 
haved handsome too, when he went away.” 

“ liking ain’t to be bought with guineas. 
Nor yet with five-pound notes.” 

“ Well,” observed Catherine, reflectively, “I 
think guineas helps liking. I hate stingy folks.” 

“You’re young and foolish. It’s a pity as 
w’isdom and judgment mostly comes when folks 
hasn’t no more need on ’em.” 

There was another and a longer silence, dur- 
ing which the wind rose higher, and the rain 
rattled against the casement. 

“We shall have Miss Maud back to-morrow, 
I suppose,” said Catherine. ‘ ‘ She’s a nice young 
lady : only a bit high. I don’t mean high ex- 
actly, neither ; but — she has a kind of way of 
keeping you at a distance somehow. Miss Ve- 
ronica’s more to my taste.” 

“H’m!” grunted out old Joanna, with closed 
lips. 

“She’s a bit overbearing sometimes,” pursued 
Catherine. “But then she has such pleasant 
ways with her when she is in a good-humor.” 

“ Did ye ever remember Miss Veronica taking 
any trouble about you ? I don’t mean telling 
somebody else to take trouble, and her getting the 
credit of being very kind and generous for it ! 
but right-down putting of herself out of the w’ay 
for you quietly, where there was no show-off in 
the matter ? Because I’ve know’d her ever since 
she was born, and I can’t call such a thing to 
mind.” 

Catherine opined, under her breath, that Jo- 
anna was “crusty” to-night. 

The old w'oman’s ears were quick enough to 
catch the words, and she answered, emphatical- 
ly, ‘ ‘ No, Catherine ; you’re mistaken. It ain’t 
crustiness as makes me speak as I spoke then ; 
but I’m nigh upon fifty year longer in the world 
than you, and I’ve seen a deal of people, high 
and low. I’d do more for that young lass than 
you would ; but, all the same, I read her as plain 
as print. I tell you, it makes me sorry to see 
her sometimes.” 

“Sorry! What for?” 

“What for? Well, there’s no need to say 
whether it’s for this or for that ; but I am sorry 
to see a young creature with no more religion 
than a heathen — Lord forgive me ! — and her 
head turned with vanity and A’ainglory, and 
caring for nothing but show-off and being ad- 
mired. I tell you, if Miss Veronica was sent 
to live among black Indians, she’d paint herself 
blacker than any of ’em, if that was what they 
considered handsome. Ah, deary me, Cather- 
ine child, don’t get to think too much of that 
rosy face of yours. It is pretty now. You 
needn’t plume yourself up. God made it, and 
he didn’t make it to last very long. ” 

‘ ‘ There’s the door-bell ! ” said Catherine, jump- 
ing up, not unwilling to escape from Joanna’s 
moralizing. 

In a few minutes the hall-door was shut heav- 
ily, and almost immediately afterward the vicar 
rang his bell. 


31 

“Was that Miss Veronica?” he asked, as the 
girl entered the room. 

“No, Sir; it was Jemmy Sack, Sir. He 
brought a message from my young lady to say 
as she wouldn't be home to-night.” 

“ Not be home to-night !” 

“ No, Sir. Jemmy Sack saw Miss Veronica 
at the school-house, and she bade him say, as it 
threatened rain, she should very likely stay at 
Mrs. Plew’s for the night. And you wasn’t to 
be alarmed, please Sir.” 

“Alarmed! No, of course I am not alarmed. 
But — Where is Jemmy ? Is he gone?” 

“Yes, Sir; he’s gone. He wouldn’t hardly 
stay long enough to give his message. He was 
running down Avith rain.” 

“Ha ! It is raining still, then, is it ?” 

“Pouring, Sir. And the Avind beats the rain 
against your face so as I couldn’t hardly shut 
the door.” 

“Let me knoAv Avhen Joe Dowsett comes 
back.” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“What o’clock is it?” 

“After eight. I looked at the kitchen clock 
just afore I came up stairs.” 

When Catherine related to her felloAv-servant 
Avhat had passed, the old AA'oman shook her head. 

‘ ‘ Ah, ” said she, ‘ ‘ that’s the way. The strange 
face is gone. There’s nobody at home to amuse 
my lady, so off she goes to make a fool of that 
soft-hearted little surgeon, that Avould just lay 
doAvn and let her Avalk over him, if she had a 
mind to.” 

“ But, Joanna, it’s a real bad night. I don’t 
wonder as she didn’t like the Avalk home, all 
along that sloppy lane, or through the church- 
yard, as is Avorse a deal, and lonesomer.” 

“ It ain’t sloppiness, nor yet church-yards, that 
could keep Miss Veronica if she Avanted to come. 
And, Avhat’s more, if Miss Maud had been at 
home she Avouldn’t have staid at old Mrs. PleAv’s. 
For Miss Maud she do take her up pretty short 
about her goings on Avith that soft little man. If 
there’s any body on God’s earth as Veronica minds 
or looks up to, it’s Miss Desmond. And I’a'c 
Avished more than once lately that Miss Maud 
hadn’t been aAvay this fortnight. ” 

“Why?” asked Catherine, gazing Avith open- 
mouthed curiosity at Joanna. 

‘ ‘ Well, it’s no matter. I may ha’ been Avrong, 
or I may ha’ been right ; but all’s Avell that ends 
Avell, as the saying goes.” 

And Avith this oracular response Catherine 
Avas fain to content herself. 

« 

CHAPTER XIII. 

JOE doavsett’s neavs. 

It Avas not far from ten o’clock Avhen Joe 
DoAvsett returned from Shipley Magna. Joe 
Avas in some respects an excellent serA’ant, but 
he had his failings — among Avhich might be reck- 
oned an inability to resist strong liquor AA'hen 
proffered gratuitously. During tAventy years J oe 
had not been knoAvn to be drunk at his oavu ex- 
pense. But a visit to the CroAvn at Shipley 
Magna, Avhere he Avas an old crony and customer 
of the liead hostler, was pretty sure to result in 
Joe's partial intoxication. 


32 


VERONICA. 


On the present occasion he had ridden to Ship- 
ley and back on the old pony, the sole beast of 
burden belonging to the vicar. And Joe attrib- 
uted the enormous amount of time occupied in 
the journey to his own remarkable humanity to 
the pony. 

“ Mustn’t press him hard, the old beast,” said 
Joe on his return, standing before the kitchen 
fire, the heat of which caused his wet clothes to 
steam again. 

“No fear of you pressing him hard to come 
away from the Crown,” retorted Joanna. “I 
advise you to get to your bed, and take off them 
damp things. Else you’ll be getting a fever, or 
the rheumaticks, or something. Only,” she add- 
ed, under her breath — “only we know there’s a 
special providence for certain folks ; and I’m sure 
you’re one on ’em this night, Joe Dowsett.” 

“All right. Jo-anna. 1 feel pretty comforta- 
ble, thank ’ee. No, no ; mustn’t press the old 
pony. The merciful man is merciful to his 
beast.” 

At this moment Catheiine came back from the 
sitting-room, whither she had been, according to 
orders, to give her master the tidings of Joe’s re- 
turn. 

“Master’s fine and vexed,” she said, “ at Joe 
being so late. He said he wanted to send Joe 
to fetch home Miss Veronica if he had come at 
any reasonable hour. But now it’s too late.” 

“Why was he unwilling to let her stay at 
Mrs. Plew’s?” asked Joanna. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. Miss Veronica has staid 
there before. But tlie vicar said as he’d have 
gone to fetch her hisself, only it’s such a night, 
and been getting worse and worse since sun- 
down. I think master feels lonely after being 
used to Sir John’s company. And then both the 
young ladies being away the first evening and all 
— it’s made him cross. He says he shall go to 
bed, and you’re to send him up a slice of dry 
toast and a glass of negus, with not too much 
nutmeg in it.” 

“ Negus ain’t a bad thing,” observ'ed Joe Dow- 
sett. 

“ You go to your bed, Joe, for mercy’s sake !” 
cried the old woman, impatiently. “Don’t stand 
a steaming there like a copper on washing day.” 

“ I feel pretty comfortable. Jo-anna. I see a 
friend of yours at the Crown this evening — Mr. 
Paul.” 

“Paul at the Crown !” exclaimed Catherine. 

“ Yes, Paul at the Crown. He pretended not 
to see me, and skulked through the tap-room 
like a rat. Sir John’s a gentleman. I say no- 
thing against Sir John. But Paul — Paul’s a 
sneak.” 

“Don’t you talk nonsense. Paul never did 
you no harm,” said Joanna. “And I don’t be- 
lieve you saw him at all to-night.” 

“You don’t believe — ?” 

“No, I don’t. Him and his master was to 
sleep at Danecester last night, and go off by an 
early train this morning. It ain’t likely as Paul 
should be at the Crown at Shipley Magna all 
alone. You must have took somebody else for 
him. Paul would have spoke to you*^ if it had 
been him. Why shouldn’t he?” 

.Joe turned on her with crushing severity. 

“P’raps you’ll say I was drunk next, Jo- 
anna !” 

“0 Lord, no, I sha’n’t say so. Maybe you 


were dreaming. But never mind now. Go to 
bed ; there’s a good man. ” 

It proved very difficult indeed to induce Joe to 
go to bed, how’ever. He protested over and over 
again that he felt pretty comfortable. Then he 
required Joanna and Catherine to declare sol- 
emnly that they believed his statement about 
having seen Paul ; which, finding it hopeless 
to get him to go to bed on any other terms, 
they unscrupulously did. Then he very unex- 
pectedly declared that he and Paul Iiad lived to- 
gether like brothers ; that there was no one for 
whom he felt a wanner regard ; and that Paul’s 
cold and unkind behavior had cut him to the 
heart. At last, by dint of scolding and coaxing, 
he w'as got to his own room, the door of which 
Joanna shut, with a fervent prayer that they 
might not all be burned in their beds, and 
with a gleam of comfort in the knowledge that 
the end of candle intrusted to Joe could not last 
above five minutes. 

“Ain’t it queer, Joe taking that notion about 
seeing Paul?” said Catherine, when she and Jo- 
anna were alone together. “ Do you think it 
could ha’ been — could ha’ been — what’s that you 
call it when a person’s ghost walks before they’re 
dead, as a kind of a warning? Like that story 
you tell of the eldest son where you lived kitchen- 
maid long ago. Oh, I know — a fetch. That’s 
the name. Do you think it could ha’ been Paul’s 
fetch ?” 

‘ ‘ Pooh, child ! Servants don’t have no fetches. 
Them kind of things only belongs to great fam- 
ilies. Don’t you go scaring your wits with such 
fancies, or I shall never tell you no more of my 
stories. ” 

“ But,” persisted the girl, “ Joe said that the 
figure passed through the room very quick and 
silent, and with its head turned away, and — ” 

“Well, if its head was turned away how was 
.Toe to know who it was ? It’s just a drunken 
man’s fancy, I tell you. Go to your bed. It’s 
nigh upon eleven, and I have seen to the fasten- 
ings of the doors. Good-night. When Joe’s 
sober to-morrow he will tell another story, I 
warrant.” 

But the next morning Joe told no other story. 
On the contrary, he persisted in his former as- 
sertion, and confirmed it by proof which it was 
impossible to doubt. He had remarked Paul’s 
presence at the Crown to his friend the head 
hostler, and the hostler had said, yes ; he knew 
him well enough. He was the foreign servant 
of that rich ba^’rowknight as owned such neat 
nags, and had put up at the Crown for his hunt- 
ing quarters. But in reply to a question as to 
what Paul had come there for the hostler pro- 
fessed ignorance. It might be to fetch some 
traps of his master’s. The hostler believed that 
there had been a porkmanty or something of 
that kind left in the landlord’s care. I’aul had 
brought a fly from the hotel at Danecester, and 
was to go back in it. So he (the hostler) supposed 
that he had to carry luggage. 

“But why Paul shouldn’t speak to me I don’t 
know, nor I don’t much care,” said Joe Dowsett, 
whose feelings toward his dear friend had come 
down to their ordinary level of stolid indifiference 
since the influence of his potations had subsided. 

“I couldn’t have believed as Paul would have 
give hisself such airs,” exclaimed Catherine, Avith 
a toss of her head. She felt that Paul’s slight of 


VERONICA. 


Joe Dowsett was a reflection on the rest of the 
vicar’s household. 

About eleven o’clock in the forenoon Maud 
arrived from Lowater. Captain Sheardown had 
driven her to Shipley, and had set her down at 
the vicarage without alighting himself, purposing 
to proceed to II ay moor. 

“Where is Veronica?” was Maud’s first ques- 
tion to her guardian. 

“Veronica has displeased me very much,” an- 
swered the vicar. ‘ ‘ She went to drink tea with 
old Mrs. Flew, and chose to remain there all 
night, although she knows — or might know if 
she had any sort of filial desire to ascertain my 
sentiments on any subject whatever — that I ob- 
ject to her putting herself under any obligation 
of that kind to the Flews.” 

Maud looked grave, but said, sweetly, “ Flease 
don’t be very angry with her. Uncle Charles. It 
was a dreadfully stormy night. Ferhaps she was 
afraid of the walk home.” 

“She was assuredly not afraid of incurring 
my displeasure, whatever else she may have 
feared,” said the vicar. 

Maud made no further direct efforts to avert 
her guardian’s wrath j but she took the most 
effectual means of putting him into a good-hu- 
mor, by gayly chatting about all the little inci- 
dents of her visit to Lowater, the concert at 
Danecester, and the people who had been to the 
house. 

She was in the midst of her talk, sitting, still 
with her hat in her hand, in the vicar's study, 
when the door of the room was opened a very 
little way, and a voice cried : “ Miss Maud! Miss 
Maud I Would ye please step here a moment ?” 

The voice was old Joanna’s ; but so strange 
and muffled in its tone that an unreasoning ap- 
prehension of impending evil fell upon Maud’s 
heart. 

She sprang up, and forcing a smile, said : 
“Uncle Charles, I must go for an instant to say 
a word to Joanna. I’ll be back as soon as pos- 
sible. The dear old woman has some mighty 
mystery on hand.” 

She closed the study door with an instinctive 
care, for which she could never afterward ac- 
count, and faced a countenance which seemed, 
like Medusa’s fabled head, to turn her into stone. 

The countenance was Joanna’s. But so 
changed, ghastly, and aged was it that Maud 
would hardly, under other circumstances, have 
recognized the familiar features. 

“ What is the matter, Joanna?’’ she asked, in 
quick, low tones, whose firmness suiiDrised her- 
self. 

“My dear Maudie,” answered the trembling 
old woman, “my sweet young lady, don’t ye 
lose your head. It’s all we’ve got to depend on ! 
I feel my years now as I never felt ’em before.” 

Maud made a silent, eloquent gesture of im- 
patience. 

“Yes, I will speak, deary. Mr. — Mr. Flew’s 
here. He looked in by — by — chance like. And 
— 0 Lord be merciful to us, and spare us ! — he 
says. Miss Veronica is not at his mother’s, and 
what’s more, hasn’t been there all night. And 
what to do, or what to say, or what will become 
of the vicar, I don’t know !” 

“ Hush 1 Where is Mr. Flew ? Take me to 
him. There is some mistake, some misunder- 
standing. No harm can have happened to Ve- 

C 


83 

ronica, here, in her own home, among her own 
people ! It is impossible !” 

“ Oh, my deary, IMr. Flew is more like a mad 
creature than any thing else. And as to harm — 
My innocent young lady, it goes to my heart to 
hurt you, but I’m afraid — I’m sore afraid — ” 

“Of what?” 

The old woman made no answer., but moaned 
and wrung her hands. 

A dreadful apprehension took hold of Maud 
that Mr. Flew had brought some fatal and de^ 
cisive tidings; that Veronica was dead, and that 
the old servant was endeavoring to break the 
news to her. Collecting her senses as well as 
she could, she bade Joanna take her to Mr. 
Flew at onee, and let her know the worst. 

Joanna pointed to the door of the dining-par- 
lor, and Maud sprang into the room. 

♦ 

CIIAFTER XIV. 

FLED. 

Joanna had not much exaggerated in saying 
that Mr. Flew was ‘ ‘ more like a madman than 
any thing else.” He did seem to have nearly 
lost his senses. 

“Oh, Miss Desmond!” he cried, as soon as 
he caught sight of Maud, and then stood dumb 
with clasped hands. 

“ Flease to tell me at once. It will be kind- 
er, indeed it will ! Is she dead ?” 

The utterance of the word seemed to force a 
gush of tears from Maud’s eyes, but she strug- 
gled hard to command herself. 

The little surgeon recovered some spark of 
manhood and courage at sight of the young 
girl’s piteous, innocent face. His professional 
helpfulness came to his aid, and took him away 
from the contemplation of his own distress. 

“Don’t try too violently to force back your 
tears,” he said. “Let them come. You will 
not let them master you. No ; I do not think 
Veronica is dead. No, on my honor. I would 
not deceive you.” 

“ What is it, then ? Is she ill ? Has there 
been any accident ? Is she in danger ?” 

“I wish to Heaven, Miss Desmond, that I 
could answer your questions. All I know is, 
that Miss Levincourt did not sleep at my mo- 
ther’s house last night — did not even go there at 
all — and yet she sent word here by the boy that 
she meant to do so. ” 

“But the boy may have mistaken her mes- 
sage. She may have said that she was going 
elsewhere. Have you asked ? Have you in- 
quired in the village? Joanna’s face and — ancl 
yours have infected me with terror. But I can 
not — I can not — believe that there is any real 
ground for alarm.” 

“Alarm!” echoed the voice of Mr. Levin- 
court, and the next instant he stood in the room. 

Any attempt at concealment was out of the 
question. A glance at the faces of Maud and 
]\Ir. Flew sufficed to show the vicar that some 
terrible misfortune had happened. 

“Dear Uncle Charles,” said Maud, taking 
his hand, “Mr. Flew has told us that Veronica 
was not at his mother’s house last night. Don’t, 
j)ray don’t, give way to terror, dear Uncle 
Charles. It has been some mistake of Jemmy 


34 


VERONICA. 


Sack. I am sure, quite sure of it. What harm 
can have happened ? We should have been sure 
to hear of any accident, you know. Ill news al- 
ways travels quickly. We were startled at first, 
but now I am coming to my senses a little, and 
I see how foolish it was to be so frightened !” 

The poor child was trembling in every limb, 
and the hand with which she clasped the vicar’s 
was as cold as marble. 

Some men in Mr. Levincourt’s case would 
have rushed instantly forth ; would have sought 
here and there ; would have inquired feverishly ; 
would, in brief, have been spurred by their anxi- 
ety into immediate energy and action. 

But the vicar w'as at first stunned, not stimu- 
lated, by the blow. He sank down in a chair 
like one whose bodily powers had been suddenly 
paralyzed. 

“ The first thing to be done,” said Maud, “ is 
to send Joe into the village. Let him go to 
Sack’s farm and try to find Jemmy. Then he 
might go or send to the Meggitts. It is possible 
that Veronica may have gone there. Miss Tur- 
tle and the girls were always asking her. And 
you will make inquiries, won’t you, Mr. Blew ? 
I see more and more how foolish it was to be 
so frightened !” 

The vicar, as he recovered from the first shock, 
and a^ Maud’s elastic courage and young hope- 
fulness rose higher and higher, and began to 
chase away the first ghastly fear that had crush- 
ed him, displayed an unexpected phase of feel- 
ing : he grew angry. He resented the pain he 
had been made to suffer. 

“ I think, INIr. Blew,” he said, in a voice whose 
trembling tones were by no means under control, 
“ I must say that I think it highly inconsiderate 
on your part to come here and cause so very ter- 
rible — so unspeakably terrible — an alarm with- 
out having better grounds for it. ” 

The little man, who seemed to be entirely un- 
influenced by Maud’s cheering suggestions, stood 
silent, and cast an appealing glance at the young 
girl. 

“Law dear. Sir!” cried old Joanna, who had 
remained in the room, “don’t ye say that ! IMr. 
Blew came here without knowing a thing about 
Miss Veronica. He was took aback and scared 
well-nigh as much as you was when I opened 
the door and asked him where she was, and w'hy 
she hadn’t come home with him.” 

“ Is Joe gone ? Is he going ?” exclaimed the 
vicar, rising from his chair, and speaking now 
with nervous rapidity. “Why does no one ex- 
ert any energy ? I shall go in one direction my- 
self — Joe must take another — to Sack’s farm — 
d’ye hear ? And, Blew, you w'ill — you will 
search — ” Then a sudden terror overcame 
him, and he fell back into the chair again wdth 
a groan. “My child! my child!” he cried. 
“ Oh, my child! At this moment she may be 
—dead!” 

“ No, no, no— not that !” exclaimed Mr. Blew, 
eagerly. “Not that! I do not believe she is 
dead. I do not believe she is hurt. That is 
not what I fear.” 

“ Then, Sir, what is it you do fear ? It is not 
this, and it is not that ! What means have you 
of knowing ? And how' should you understand 
a parent’s natural apprehensions, or undertake 
to limit them ? Have you, ” he added, sudden- 
ly, having caught a glimpse of intelligence that 


passed between the surgeon and Joanna — “have 
you any information that you are concealing 
from me ?” 

“No! No!” 

“You have! I see it in your face — and in 
hers. Joanna, I insist, I command, you to 
speak! Blew, if you think it kind to keep me 
in suspense you are cruelly mistaken. Tell me 
the truth ! ” 

“ Mr. Levincourt, as God is my witness, I 
knoAv nothing ! I do not, upon my soul ! But 
I — I had a momentary fear — a mere moment- 
ary suspicion — that — ” 

Suspicion, Sir!” 

“That — that Miss Levincourt might have left 
her home, purposing not to return to it.” 

“ H — how dare you ?” gasped the vicar ; and 
then suddenly ceased, as though the words were 
arrested in his throat and Avere almost choking 
him. 

“Untie his neckcloth!” cried the surgeon, 
springing forward. The vicar AA^aA’ed him off, 
but suffered old Joanna to obey IMr. BIcav’s di- 
rections. 

Maud looked from one to another in an agony 
of beAvilderment. 

“ Left her home !” she exclaimed. “ Veron- 
ica leave her home, purposing not to return to 
it! How? Why?” 

“Whisht, my deary!” muttered Joanna, still 
busied about her master. “Don’t ye giA^e Avay. 
It may not be so bad as AA’e’re afeard. ” 

“So bad as Avhat? What does IMr. BleAV 
mean? What are you all afraid of? Oh, Ve- 
ronica ! ” 

‘ ‘ Here he is. Sir ! Here’s Jemmy !” cried Joe 
DoAvsett, dragging Jemmy Sack into the room 
after him. “ I was on my Avay to the farm Avhen 
I met him. Noav speak, you young rascal, and 
tell his reA'erence Avhat Miss Veronica said to 
you!” 

The boy Avas flushed, panting, and very much 
frightened. Joe had expended a great part of 
his OAvn painful excitement in hauling Jemmy 
Sack to the vicarage Avith very unnecessary vio- 
lence. 

“ I bain’t a young rascal !” said Jemmy, driA-^- 
en to bay. “And I told the message here last 
night as Miss Veroniky said, so I did.” 

“ Don’t be afraid. Jemmy,” said Maud, trying 
to soothe the boy. “ No one will hurt you. You 
have done no harm. ” 

“ No, I knoAvs I haA’en’t!” retorted Jemmy. 

“But you Avill tell us AAUat — Avhat Miss Ve- 
ronica said, AA'on’t you. Jemmy ? We are all in 
sad trouble because Ave’re afraid some harm has 
happened to her, and Ave Avant to find out AA'here 
she is. ” 

The sight of the SAveet, pale face, doA\m Avhich 
the tears Avere noAv streaming fast, and the sound 
of the sweet, tremulous voice, instantly melted 
the boy’s heart, and he professed his readiness 
to say all that he kneAV. But that amounted 
to A'ery little. He had seen Miss Veronica at 
the school- house. But she had not remained 
until the end of the practicing. Before leaving 
she had said to Jemmy that she Avas going to 
Mrs. BleAv’s house to drink tea, and that, as the 
evening Avas turning out Avet, she should sleep 
there. Jemmy Avas to go and take that message 
to the vicarage. But he Avas not to go until 
quite late ; not until after seA^en o’clock at all 


VERONICA. 


35 


events. And Miss Veronica had given him a 
silver sixpence, and bade him earn it honestly 
by doing exactly as she told him. 

“ And so I did,” protested Jemmy. “ I niver 
goe’d near the vicarage until nigh upon eight 
o’clock, and it was powering Avi’ rain, and I Avas 
soaked through, and Avhen I got home daddy 
thrashed me.” 

Old Joanna stood by, emphasizing e\^ery Avord 
that the boy uttered by a nod of the head, a 
sigh, or a gesture Avith uplifted hands, as avIio 
should say, “Ay, ay; it is just as I thought!” 
Ever since the speaking of those Avords by Mr. 
PleAv Avhich so aroused the vicar’s indignation 
the latter had sat passive — almost sullen — in his 
chair. He had listened to Jemmy Sack’s story 
in silence, and had apparently relinquished his 
purpose of going forth to seek his daughter. Noav 
he rose, as though struck by a sudden idea, and 
hastily left the room. His footsteps Avere heard 
ascending the staircase and entering the apart- 
ment overhead. It Avas Veronica’s chamber. 
The steps ceased, and there Avas silence in the 
house. The little group in the dining-parlor 
stood staring blankly at each other. 

Maud’s tears had ceased to flow. She was 
frozen by a new and but half-comprehended fear. 

Presently Catherine ran in from the kitchen. 
People had come to give what information they 
could. By this time the Avhole village was ac- 
quainted Avith Veronica’s disappearance. Roger 
the ploAvman’s Avife had seen Miss LeA'incourt by 
herself Avalking along the Shipley Magna road 
A'ery fast. Miss had not said good-afternoon to 
her. But she (Roger’s Avife) thought she might 
not have seen her, for she Avas going along in a 
quick, scai-ed kind of a Avay, looking straight be- 
fore her. 

Immediately after this Avoman appeared a Avit- 
ness Avho testified to having seen the vicar’s 
daughter in a carriage, driving swiftly on the 
road betAveen Shipley Magna and Danecester, 
betAveen five and six o’clock on the previous even- 
ing. 

This man Avas the Shipley-in-the-Wold and 
Danecester carrier, Avho kneAV Veronica Avell by 
sight, as he did most people Avithin a circuit of 
tAventy miles round Shipley. He had just heard, 
he said, doAvn at the Red Coav that the young 
lady Avas missing. So he thought he Avould step 
up and say Avhen and where he had last seen her. 

On hearing the first Avords of this man’s story 
Maud had rushed breathlessly up stairs to call her 
guardian. In a few minutes she returned alone 
to the door of the dining-room, and beckoned 
Mr. PleAV to come to her. 

The babble of voices, Avhich had arisen high 
and confused Avhen she had left the room, ceased 
suddenly as soon as her white face Avas seen again 
in the doorAvay. There Avas a pause of expect- 
ation. 

“What is it?” Avhispered Mr. PleAv, obeying 
Maud’s summons. 

“ Will you please step into the study to Uncle 
Charles for a moment, Mr. Blew ?” 

She preceded him into the study. The vicar 
Avas sitting there Avith a paper in his hand. 

“Is there neAvs?” cried Mr. PleAv, eagerly. 

The vicar’s face shoAved a strange agitation — 
an agitation different from the first emotions of 
surprise and alarm Avhich he had exhibited on 
learning that liis daughter Avas not to be found. 


“Yes,” he said; “there is neAA’^s. I am — 
happy — thankful — that Veronica is in safety. 
It has been a false alarm — a — a mistake. I am 
quite relieA^ed.” 

“Thank God!” cried the surgeon, fervently. 

Mr, Levincourt tried to speak Avith some de- 
gree of self-control. His hand shook, and his 
features twitched. 

“I have cause to be thankful,” he began, and 
then suddenly broke doAvn and turned aAvay. 
“Tell him AV’hat I Avanted, Maud,” he mur- 
mured in a stifled A’oice. Then he bent his 
arms on the table, and boAved his head, and hid 
his face in his hands. 

“Will you do us the great kindness,” said 
Maud, addressing the surgeon, “ to get rid of all 
those people? Thank them, and say — what is 
fitting.” 

“ But Avhat am I to say ?” 

Maud glanced at the vicar, but seeing him 
motionless, Avith his face buried in his hands, 
she ansAvered : 

“Mr. Levincourt wishes them to be told that 
Veronica is in perfect safety. There is no cause 
for alarm. He has found a letter from her.” 

“Impress upon them,” murmured the vicar, 
Avith still averted face, “ that there has been a- — 
misunderstanding. If I had seen the letter soon- 
er — Miss Levincourt did not leave my house 
Avithout informing me. ” 

Mr. PleAv still hesitating, Maud made an im- 
ploring gesture. 

“ Pray, pray, Mr. PleAA', send those people 
aAA'ay !” 

Mr. PleAv proceeded to obey the vicar’s direc- 
tions as Avell as he could. The poor little man’s 
heart Avas aching and his spirit Avas troubled. At 
length he succeeded in inducing the little croAvd 
to depart. They Avent unAvillingly and with a 
perfect hunger of unsatisfied curiosity. They 
Avould fain have lingered in the kitchen to talk 
and to hear; but old Joanna A^ery unceremoni- 
ously bade them begone, and Avas obdurate to- 
Avard all attempts at discussing the question of 
Miss Veronica’s departure. 

“ I knoAV no more than my betters chooses to 
tell me,” said Joanna. “Thank God the lass 
isn’t murdered, nor any way hurt, nor yet droAvn- 
ed, nor yet kidnapped. That’s all I knoAV. And 
her father knoAvs Avhere she is. And so I don’t 
see as the rest is any of our businesses.” 

“ Mr. PkAAq” said the vicar, when the surgeon, 
having knocked at the door of the study, had been 
readmitted by Maud — “Mr. PleAv, if I shoAved un- 
due resentment for Avhat you said just noAv, I ask 
your pardon. ” 

“Oh, Mr. Levincourt ! Don’t, pray don’t speak 
of my pardon ! But — Miss Desmond said you had 
found a letter — ” 

“ I have found a letter from my daughter, and 
I am going to London to-night.” 

“To-night!” 

“Yes.” 

“To meet Miss Levincourt?” 

“To meet Miss Levincourt if possible. I take 
Maud Avith me. I may be absent some time, and 
she can not remain here alone. I shall place her 
under the protection of her aunt. Lady Tallis, 
Avho is in London. If you are asked about Miss 
Desmond, I Avish you to be able to say that she, 
at least, is in safety.” 

There was a bitterness in the vicar’s tone as he 


3G 


VERONICA. 


spoke the last words which sent a pang through 
the surgeon’s heart, lie was, as Joanna had 
called him, “ a soft little man.” 

“I hope,” said he, wistfully, “that I may be 
able to say so of Ye — of Miss Levincourt too.” 

“ Mr. Rlew, I believe you are a sincere friend, 
and that you wish well to us all,” said the vicar, 
suddenly. “ I will trust you.” 

“ You may, Mr. Levincourt. I — of course I 
knew all along that it was of no use ; and I never 
— scarcely ever — allowed myself to feel any thing 
like hope. She was so superior in every way. 
But I am not altogether selhsh, Veronica’s hap- 
piness is very dear to me. It’s all over now, of 
course. B ut if— if there is any thing in the world 
I can do for you, or for her, you may be sure I 
sliall not flinch.” 

The vicar took the little man’s hand. “Ah !” 
he moaned, with the cruel candor of a man ab- 
sorbed in his own trouble ; “it might have been 
better if she had been able to bring herself to 
care for you. Any thing would have been bet- 
ter than this ! She has run away, Mr. Blew ; 
inn away with that — ” he checked himself, “with 
Sir John Gale.” 

“ I knew it !” cried the surgeon. “ I am not 
surprised.” But his face grew deadly pale as he 
spoke. 

“ Let it turn out as it may,” resumed the vic- 
ar, “I can not easily forgive her. She has been 
ungrateful and deceitful. But she is my child, 
my only child. I can not abandon her to her 
fate. She writes me here that Sir John had 
j)rivate reasons for making a secret marriage — ” 

“Marriage! Is she married?” 

“ If she is not he shall answer it, the infernal 
villain ! But,” added the vicar, recovering him- 
self somewhat, “you perceive how all-important 
it may be not to give evil tongues a handle. You 
will speak of — you will defend — a runaway match, 
nothing more. That is bad enough. I must go 
to London to-night. A train leaves Danecester 
at midnight. I might drive to a by-station at 
once, but I should be no better off. We must 
wait for the twelve o’clock mail ; there is no di- 
rect train to London between this hour and mid- 
night. Every hour seems an age.” 

“Yes, yes; you must go. God grant you 
may find her ! Have you any clew ?” 

“ A few words dropped by that man’s servant. 
And his own intention, expressed some time ago, 
of going to Italy. If I can but be in time to pre- 
vent their leaving England — ” 

“Ai)d Miss Desmond goes with you?” 

“Yes. My poor Maudie! Ah, how little 
your mother thought to what contact Avith mis- 
ery and disgrace she Avas exposing you Avhen she 
bequeathed you to my care !” 

They Avere the first Avords of consideration for 
any human being’s sufferings, save his OAvn, that 
the vicar had spoken. 

Arrangements Avere hastily made for the de- 
parture that evening. Mr. PleAv Avas helpful and 
active. lie ordered a vehicle to take the vicar 
and his Avard to Danecester at seven o’clock. Old 
Joanna Avas to be in charge of the house, Cath- 
ei’ine sobbed as she packed up a few clothes for 
Maud, 

“ Seems like as if a earthquake had corned 
and sAvalloAved us all up, miss,” said Catherine. 
The vicar had fought hard to shoAv a brave front 
to the servants, to keep up appearances; but 


Avithout much success ; for there Avas no convic- 
tion at the bottom of his OAvn heart to enable him 
to persuade others that all Avould be Avell Avith his 
daughter. He was too much a man of the Avorld 
to give credence to the assertion made in the 
hurried letter left behind her by Veronica, that 
Aveighty private reasons had pre\’ented Sir John 
Gale from openly demanding her hand, and had 
induced him to urge her to consent to a clandestine 
marriage. “ Fora man of his age and position 
there can exist no such reasons,” muttered the 
vicar between his clenched teeth. “Miserable, 
Avretched, misguided, degraded girl! But if 
there is justice on earth he shall marry her. He 
shall find that he can not thus outrage and defy 
the world. He shall marry her by — ” 

The dusk AA^as falling Avhen the vicar and his 
ward drove aAvay from the garden gate of the 
vicarage. As they passed the spot where Sir 
John Gale had been found bleeding and insens- 
ible on the ground ]\Ir. LeA'incourt closed his 
eyes and groaned aloud. 

Maud started, as the scene recalled to her 
mind the fact that the accident had happened lit- 
tle more than tAvo months ago. 

“ Tavo months !” she said to herself, Avhile the 
tears blinded her eyes and streamed doAvn her 
cheeks. “ Hoav happy Ave Avere only tAvo months 
ago!” 


CHAPTER XV. 

LADY TALLIS. 

It AA'as not until Mr. Levincourt had been seat- 
ed for some time in the raihvay carriage that he 
remembered that he Avas ignorant of Lady Tal- 
lis’s address. Young Lockwood had said that 
she Avas in London, but Avhcre the vicar kneAV not. 

“Maud!” said he, suddenly, “hoAV are Ave to 
find your aunt ?” , 

Maud Avas leaning her Aveary head against the 
cushions, and her eyes Avere closed. She had 
not been sleeping, however, for she immediately 
opened her eyes, and repeated the vicar’s Avords : 

“ Hoav are Ave to find my aunt?” 

“ Yes, hoAV ? In the Avhirl and confusion and 
misery of this dreadful departure it never oc- 
curred to me that I do not knoAv Lady Tallis’s 
address ! Her last letter Avas dated from the 
country. ” 

“Mr. — ]Mrs. LoclcAvood knoAvs AA'here Aunt 
Hilda is,” ansAvered Maud, after a moment’s re- 
flection. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” said the vicar, witli ])eevisli 
irritability. “Mrs. LockAvood knoAA'sI But 
Avhere can these people be found ? Merciful 
HeaA'ens, it is enough to madden one ! It is all 
confusion and hopeless misery!” 

“ Dear Uncle Charles, in this I think I can 
help you. I remember the LockAvoods’ address. 
They live in a street called GoAver .Street. Do 
you knoAv it ?” 

“GoAA^er Street? Are you sure? Hoav do 
you knoAv ?” 

“ Mr. LockAAmod mentioned that his mother 
had a house there. Her husband bequeathed it 
to her, and she lives there.” 

“ Well, I suppose Ave must drive there the first 
thing. I knoAv of no other way.” 

After that tlie vicar closed his eyes also. But 
for a long time his brain Avas tormented by Avhirl- 


VERONICA. 


ing thoughts. Occasionally a gleam of something 
like hope darted into his mind. Might it not be 
possible that all would yet go well with Veronica? 
iSome fathers would have deemed that by no pos- 
sibility could it be altogether well with her. It 
could not be well to be the wife of a man who 
had induced her to leave her home clandestinely, 
to deceive and inflict torturing anxiety on her 
father; a man who had, at the least, caused a 
temporary slur to be cast on her reputation, and 
who had risked tarnishing her good name for- 
ever. But in his present wretchedness it seemed 
to the vicar that to know Veronica Sir John 
Gale’s wife would in itself be happiness and peace 
of mind. And it must be remembered that 
Charles Levincourt was at heart a worldly man ; 
that the somewhat lax tone of morals and want 
of high principle which he had observed in Sir 
John Gale’s conversation would by no means 
have induced him to refuse the baronet his 
daughter’s hand had he asked for it openly. 
But he was keenly alive to the disgrace of his 
daughter’s elopement; and not the least sharp 
pang he felt was caused by the reflection that 
Veronica had thoroughly deceived him. 

At length he fell into an uneasy sleep, through 
which he was dimly conscious of mental pain, 
and of a dread of waking. From this slumber 
he was aroused by Maud’s hand on his shoulder 
and Maud’s voice in his ear, filtering out that she 
believed they must have reached London. 

They were in London. The railway station 
looked inexpressibly dreary, with its long vistas 
ending in black shadow, its sickly lamps blink- 
ing like eyes that have watched all night and are 
weary, and its vast glazed roof, through -which 
the gray dawn was beginning to glimmer. 

It was yet too early to attempt to go to Mrs. 
Lockwood’s house. They must wait at least a 
couple of hours. The vicar looked so worn, 
aged, and ill that Maud tried to persuade him 
to seek some rest at the hotel close to the sta- 
tion, promising that he should be roused in due 
time. But he refused to do so. 

“Sit here,” he said, leading Maud into a 
waiting-room, where there was a dull coke fire 
smouldering slowly, and where a solitary gas- 
light shed a yellow glare over a huge, bare, shin- 
ing centre-table, leaving the rest of the apart- 
ment in almost darkness. “Yon will be safe 
and unmolested here. I must go and make 
some inquiries — try to find some trace — Re- 
main here till I return.” 

Maud thought she had never seen a room so 
utterly soul-depressing. No place would have 
appeared cheerful to her at that moment; but 
this railway waiting-room w'as truly a dreary 
and forlorn apartment. She sat there cower- 
ing over the dull red fire, sick, and chilly, and 
sad ; listening nervously to every echoing foot- 
fall on the long platform without ; to the whis- 
tle of some distant engine, screaming as though 
it had lost its way in the labyrinthine net-work 
of lines that converged just outside the great ter- 
minus, and were wildly crying for help and guid- 
ance ; listening to the frequent clang of a heavy 
swing-door, the occasional sound of voices (once 
a man laughed aloud, and she involuntarily put 
her hands up to her startled ears to shut out the 
sound that jarred on every quivering nerve with 
agonizing discord), and to the loud, deliberate 
ticking of a clock above the waiting-room door. 


37 

At length — how long the time had seemed ! — 
Mr. Levincourt returned. 

IMaud started up, and tried to read in his face 
if he had any tidings of Veronica, but she did 
not venture to speak. He answered her appeal- 
ing look : 

“I have seen the station-master,” he said. 
“They have not been here. I believe that much 
is certain. The man was civil, and caused in- 
quiries to be made among the people — oh my 
God, that I should have to endure this degrada- 
tion! — but there was no trace of such people as I 
described. This man made a suggestion. They 
might have left the main line at Dibley, and 
either come to London by the other line, thus 
arriving at a station at the opposite end of the 
town ; or — as I think more probable — have 
reached the junction that communicates with 
the coast railways, and so got down to the sea 
without touching London at all.” 

“ Oh, Uncle Charles !” 

“Come, my poor child, let me at least put you 
into a shelter were you will be safe from the con- 
tamination of our disgrace. You look half dead, 
my poor Maudie ! Come, there is a cab waiting 
here outside.” 

As Maud moved toward the door to obey his 
summons the light of the gas-lamp fell full on 
her pale face, and he almost exclaimed aloud at 
her startling resemblance to her mother. 

It seemed to the vicar that the remembrance 
of his old love, thus called up at this moment, 
filled his heart with bitterness even to ovei’flow- 
ing. 

“Oh me!” he groaned; “I wish it Avere all 
over ! I am weary of my life. ” 

The cab rattled over the stones through the 
still nearly empty streets. 

Maud’s remembrance of any part of London 
was very vague. She had never even seen the 
neighborhoods through whioh she was now being 
jolted. It all looked squalid, mean, grimy, and 
uninviting under the morning light. At last 
they came into a long street, of which the fur- 
ther end was veiled and concealed by a dense 
foggy vapor. 

“What number, miss?” asked the cabman, 
turning round on his seat. 

‘ ‘ What do you say ?” asked Maud, fainth\ 

“What number, miss? This ’ere is Gower 
Street.” 

“Oh!” cried Maud, despairingly. “I don’t 
remember the number !” 

The cabman had pulled up his horse, and was 
noAV examining the lash of his whip with an air 
of philosophical indifference, like a man who is 
weighed upon by no sense of responsibility. Aft- 
er a minute or so he observed, with great calm- 
ness, “ That’s ockkard ; Gower Street is raythur 
a long street, and it ’ll take some time to knock 
at all the doors both sides o’ the way.” Then 
he resumed the examination of his whip-lash. 

“Oh, Uncle Charles, I am so sorry!” mur- 
mured Maud. “ What shall we do ?” 

Mr. Levincourt jumped out of the cab, and 
ran to a door where there was a young woman 
washing the steps. 

“ Do you happen to know,” he asked, “where- 
abouts in this street a Mrs. Lockwood lives?” 

“Mrs. Lockwood!” echoed the girl, drying 
her streaming arms on her apron, “ this is Mrs. 
Lockwood’s. ” 


VERONICA. 


38 

The vicar beckoned to the cabman, who had 
also alighted by this time, and who now led his 
raw-boned horse up to the door at a funereal 
pace. 

“My good girl,” said the vicar, “will you 
take a message to your mistress at once ? It is 
of the greatest importance.” 

“Missis ain’t up yet,” rejoined the servant, 
stai’ing first at him, then at Maud, and lastly at 
the cabman, from whom she received a confi- 
dential wink, which seemed to claim a comrnon 
vantage-ground of Cockneyhood between him- 
self and her, and to separate them both from 
the vicar and his ward. 

“I will send up this card to her,” said Mr. 
Levincourt. He took out a card and pencil, and 
wrote some words hastily. Then he gave the 
girl the card, together with a shilling, and begged 
her to lose no time in delivering the former to 
her mistress, while she was to keep the latter 
for herself. 

The administration of the bribe appeared to 
raise the vicar in the cabman’s estimation. The 
latter officiously pulled down the window-glass 
on the side next the house, so that Maud could 
put her head out, and then stood with the handle 
of the cab door in his hand, ready for any 
emergency. 

The pi'ogress of the seiwant to her mistress’s 
bedroom was retarded by her efforts to decipher 
what was written on the card, an attempt in 
which she only partially succeeded. In about 
five minutes she came down again, and said to 
the vicar : 

“Missus’s best compliments, and the lady as 
you’re a looking for is lodging in the ’ouse. 
She’s on the first-floor, and will you please walk 
into the drawing-room ?” 

The vicar and Maud followed the girl up 
stairs into a front-room, furnished as a sitting- 
room. It communicated by folding-doors, which 
were now closed, with another apartment. 

• The servant drew up the yellow window-blinds, 
desired the visitors to be seated, and asked, as 
she prepared to leave the room ; 

“Who shall I say, please?” 

“Mr. Levincourt, and — Stay! You had 
better take my card in to her ladyship, and say 
that her niece is here with me, and would be 
glad if she might see her.” 

The servant departed into the adjoining cham- 
ber, as it appeared, for the sound of voices very 
slightly muffled by the folding-doors was heard 
immediately. In a very few minutes the girl 
returned, begging Maud to follow her. 

“She ain’t up yet, but she’d like to see you, 
miss ; and she'll come out to you, Sir, as soon as 
possible. ” 

^ Maud obeyed her aunt’s summons, and the 
Hear was left alone, standing at the window, 
and looking at the monotonous line of the op- 
posite houses. He was, in a measure, relieved 
by the fact that the first surprise and shock to 
Lady Tallis of his presence and his errand in 
London would be over before he saw her. He 
felt a strong persuasion that tact and self-pos- 
session were by no means poor Hilda’s distin- 
guishing characteristics, and he had nervouslv 
dreaded the first meeting with her. Although 
he had placed himself as far as possible from the 
folding-doors, he could hear the voices rising 
and falling in the adjoining room, and occasion- 


ally could distinguish her ladyship’s tones in a 
shrill exclamation. 

He tapped his fingers with irritable impatience 
on the window. Why did not Maud urge her 
aunt to hasten? She knew that every minute 
was of importance to him. He would wait no 
longer. He would go away, and return later. 

As he so thought the door opened, and there 
appeared the woman whom he had last seen in 
the bloom of her youth more than a score of 
years ago. The remembrance of the beautiful 
Hilda Delaney was very distinct in his mind. 
At the sound of the opening door he turned 
round and beheld a figure startlingly at variance 
with that remembrance ; a small, lean, pale old 
womati, huddled in a dark-colored wrapper, and 
with a quantity of soft gray hair untidily thrust 
into a brown silk net. 

“My dear friend,” said she, taking both the 
vicar’s hands — “ my poor dear friend I” 

Her voice had an odd, cracked sound, like the 
tone of a broken musical instrument which has 
once given forth sweet notes ; and she spoke with 
as unmistakable a brogue as though she had nev- 
er passed a day out of the County Cork. 

“Ah! you wouldn’t have known me now, 
would ye?” she continued, looking up into the 
vicar’s face. 

“Yes,” he answered, after an instant’s glance 
— “yes, I should have known you.” And, in- 
deed, as he looked, her face became familiar to 
his eyes. She retained the exquisite delicacy of 
skin which had been one of her chief beauties, 
but it was now blanched and wan, and marked 
with three or four deep lines round the mouth, 
though on the forehead it remained smooth. 
There was still the regular, clear-cut outline, but 
exaggerated into sharpness. There were still 
the large, finely-shaped, lustrous hazel eyes, but 
with a glitter in them that seemed too bright for 
health, and with traces of much wailing and 
weeping in their heavy lids. She was a kind- 
ly, foolish, garrulous, utterly undignified wo- 
man. 

“I have come,” said the vicar, “to ask 5’ou 
to give shelter and protection to this dear child. 
My house is no home for her now, and Heaven 
knows when I shall return to it myself. I sup- 
pose Maud has — has told you?” 

“Ah, my dear Mr. Levincourt, where would 
the child find shelter and protection if not with 
her poor dear mother’s only sister ? And hasn’t 
it been the wish of my heart to have her with me 
all these years ? And, indeed, when Clara died 
I would have adopted her outright, if I’d been 
let. But not having any daughter of my own — 
though, to be sure, a boy would have been best, 
because of the bai’onetcy, and he never forgave 
me, I believe, for not giving him a son — of course 
I — But indeed I am truly distressed at your 
misfortune, and I hope that things may not be 
so bad as ye fear. A runaway mar’ge is objic- 
tionable, there’s no doubt of that in the world. 
Still, ye know, my dear Mr. Levincourt, it won’t 
be the first, and I’d wager not the last. And, 
upon my honor, I can’t see but that the runaway 
mar’ges may turn out as well sometimes as those 
that are arranged in the regular way ; though, 
goodness knows, that is not saying much, after 
all.” 

Here the poor lady paused to heave a deep 
sigh, and then, seating herself close to Maud, 


VERONICA. 30 


she took her niece’s hand and pressed it affec- 
tionately. 

The vicar perceived that Lady Tallis had but 
a very imperfect conception of the real state of 
the case. The truth was that she had not per- 
mitted Maud to explain it to her, being too much 
absorbed in the joy and surprise of seeing her 
niece to give heed or sympathy to the fate of the 
vicar’s daughter. Her life had been so utterly 
joyless and empty of affection for so many years 
that the lonely woman not unnaturally clutched 
at this chance of happiness with the selfish ea- 
gerness of a starving creature who snatches at 
food. 

“ It is very, very dreadful, Aunt Hilda,” Maud 
had said, lowering her voice lest it should reach 
the ears of the vicar in the next room. “Mr. 
Levincourt will be heart-broken if he does not 
find her. And I love her so dearly. My poor 
Veronica! Oh, Avhy, why did she leave us?” 

But her aunt could not help dwelling on the 
hope that out of this trouble might come a gleam 
of comfort to her own desolate life. 

She had soothed and kissed the sobbing girl, 
and had poured out a stream of incoherent talk, 
as she hastily huddled some clothes about her. 

“Hush, dear child! Don’t be fretting, my 
poor pet ! You will stay here with me, safe, 
now! Sure they’ll find her beyond a doubt. 
Of course the man will marry her. And as to 
running away, why, my darling child, though I’d 
be loth to inculcate the practice, or to recommend 
it to any well-brought-up girl, still ye know very 
well that it’s a thing that happens every day. 
There was Miss Grogan, of the Queen’s County, 
one of the most dashing girls that ye ever saw in 
all your days, eloped with a subaltern in a march- 
ing regiment. But she had fifty thousand pounds 
of her own the very moment she came of age; 
so of course they were very comfortable in a 
worldly point of view, and the whole county vis- 
ited them just as much as if they had had bans 
published in the parish church every day for a 
year. And yet, at first, her family were in the 
greatest distress — the very greatest distress — 
though he was the second cousin of Lord Cdon- 
taif, and an extremely elegant young fellow. 
But of course I understand Mr. Levincourt’s feel- 
ings, and I am sincerely sorry for him — I am, in- 
deed.” 

So, in speaking to the vicar, her tone, although 
not unsympathizing, was very different from what 
it would have been had she at all realized the ter- 
rible apprehensions which racked his mind. 

“ Ye’ll stay and have a mouthful of breakfast 
with me, my dear Mr. Levincourt?” she said, 
seeing him about to depart. “ I will have it got 
ready immediately. And indeed you must both 
be fainting, after traveling all night, too — 
What’s the matter ?” 

The question was caused by a ghastly change 
which had come over the vicar’s face. His eyes 
were fixed on the direction on an envelope which 
lay on the table. He pointed to it silently. Lady 
Tallis stared in alarm and bewilderment ; but 
Maud, springing to the vicar’s side, looked over 
his shoulder at the writing. 

“Oh, Aunt Hilda!” she gasped. “What 
does this mean ?” 

“What, child? What in the world is the 
matter ? That ? Sui-e that’s a bill, sent in by 
my shoemaker !” 


“But the name?” said the vicar, with a sud- 
den, startling fierceness. 

“The name? Well, it’s my name; whose 
else should it be ? Oh, to be sure — I see now ! 
Ah ! ye didn’t know that he took another name 
about two years ago. Did ye never hear of his 
uncle, the rich alderman? The alderman left 
him thirty thousand pounds, on condition that 
he should tack his name on to his old one, and 
give him the honor and glory of sending down 
his own plebeian appellation with the baronetcy. 
So, of course, when he changed his name I 
changed mine ; for I am his wife, though I 
make no doubt that he would be glad enough 
to deny it if he could. Only that, being his 
wife, he has more power to tyrannize over me 
than he has over any body else. But then — ” 

“But what is he called now. Aunt Hilda?” 
inteiTupted Maud, seeing that her guardian was 
in an agony of speechless suspense. “What 
names does — does your husband go by ?” 

“ Indeed, my pet, that's more than I can say ; 
but his rightful style and title is Sir John Tallis 
Gale, Baronet, and I suppose you knew that 
much before !” 

“ Oh my God !” groaned the ^^car, sinking into 
a chair, and letting his head drop on his hands. 

“Uncle Charles!” screamed Maud, throwing 
her arms around him. “Oh, Uncle Charles! 

It will kill him !” 

But the vicar was not dying. He was living 
to a rush of horrible sensations ; grief, astonish- 
ment, shame, and anger. The indelibility of the 
disgrace inflicted on him ; the hopelessness of 
any remedy; the infamy that must attend his 
child’s future life, were all present to his mind 
with instant and torturing vividness. But of 
these mingled emotions anger was the predom- 
inant one, and it grew fiercer with every second 
that passed. His love for his daughter had ever 
been marked more by pride than by depth or 
tenderness. This pride was now trampled in 
the dust, and a feeling of implacable resentment 
arose in his mind against her who had inflicted 
the anguish of suck a humiliation. 

He raised his face distorted by passion. 

“ From this hour forth I disown and abandon 
her,” he said, in quivering tones. “No one is 
my friend who speaks her name to me. In the 
infamy she has chosen let her live and die. And 
may God so punish her for the misery she has 
caused — ” 

Maud fell on her knees before him, and seized 
his hands. “Oh, hush; oh pray, pray hush, 
dear Uncle Charles !” she sobbed out. “Think 
how Sony you would be if you said the words ! 
How you would repent and be sorry all your life 
long!” 

“For mercy’s sake!” exclaimed Lady Tallis, 
in a tremulous voice, “what is it all about ? My 
dearest child, you positively must not sob in that 
heart-breaking manner ! Sure you’ll make your- 
self ill.” 

“And for one who is not worth a tear !” add- 
ed the vicar. “For one who — But I will never 
mention her name again. It is over. She is 
lost and gone irrevocably. Lady Tallis, I would 
have spared you this if I could have guessed the 
extent of the degradation that has fallen upon 
me. My presence in your house at this moment 
is almost an outrage.” 

The poor lady sat down in a chair, and press- * 


40 


VERONICA. 


ing her hands to her forehead, began to whimper. 
‘ ‘ I’d be unspeakably obliged to ye, Mr. Levin- 
court,” she said, “ if you would do me the favor 
to explain. My poor head is in a whirl of con- 
fusion. I really and truly am not strong enough 
to support this kind of thing!” 

“We have each of us a horrible burden to 
support,” rejoined the vicar, almost sternly. 
“And God knows that mine is not the least 
heavy. You have been entirely separated from 
your husband for some years ?” 

“Oh, indeed I have! That is to say, there 
never has been a legal separation ; but — ” 


The vicar interrupted her. “ He has assumed 
another name and has been living abroad ?” 

“As to the name, I am sure of that, because 
I learned it from his agent, to whom I am some- 
times compelled to have recourse for money. 
But for where he has been living, I assure you, 
my dear Mr. Levincourt — ” 

The villain who has carried away my daugh- 
ter — stolen her from a home in which he had re- 
ceived every kindness and hospitable care that 
my means permitted me to lavish on him — that 
black-hearted, thankless, inlamous scoundrel, 
Lady Tallis, is — Sir John Gale.” 


BOO 

CHAPTER I. 

AUNT AND NIECE. 

In the first shock of amazement at the calam- 
ity which had overtaken the family at the vicar- 
age, none of those who participated in it had had 
room in their minds for the entertainment of any 
minor sensation of surprise. 

But it was not very long — not many days, that 
is to say — before Lady Tallis, or, as her proper 
title now ran, Lady Tallis Gale, began to won- 
der how Ml*. Levincourt had discovered her 
whereabouts, and to question Maud on the sub- 
ject. 

The latter had been very ill during the first 
days of her stay in London. Grief and anxiety 
alone would not have prostrated the youthful 
vigor of her body. But so many harrowing emo- 
tions preceding a long night-journey, and so over- 
whelming a shock awaiting at the close of the 
journey a frame in great need of food and rest, 
had stricken down the young girl, and laid her 
on a bed of sickness. 

Her aunt forgot her own delicacy of health and 
inert habits to tend Maud. She would scarcely 
allow a servant to come near the suffering girl, 
but waited on her day and night with untiring 
care. 

In spite of the terrible circumstances which 
had brought Maud to London, in spite of the 
dreadful discovery that the man who had been 
guilty of the abduction of Veronica Levincourt 
was the husband who had wronged, outraged, 
and finally abandoned herself, it would not be 
too much to say that Hilda Tallis enjoyed the 
first moments of happiness she had known dur- 
ing many weary years by the bedside of her sis- 
ter’s child. 

It was sweet to feel that there was some one 
bound by the ties of blood to feel kindly toward 
her. It was still sweeter to find a being who — 
at least for a time — depended upon her for love, 
and care, and tendance. 

The poor lonely wife, in the first days of the 
discovery that her husband had ceased to feel 
for her even such love as can be inspired by a 
fair face, had longed with all her heart for a 
child. 

The conduct of Sir John Tallis, which had 
gone on deepening through every shade, from 
gray indifference down to absolutely black bru- 
tality, had eflectually quenched whatever germ 


K I I. 

of regard for him poor Hilda might once have 
cherished. But for some time she clung to the 
idea that he would be kinder to her if there were 
any prospect of her bringing him an heir. She 
was the kind of woman who would probably have 
loved her children better than her husband, even 
had that husband been good and affectionate. 

She would have enjoyed superintending the 
government of a nursery, and have craved for 
no Other companionship than that of her prat- 
tling babies. 

The dependency of sickness made Maud ap- 
pear almost like a child in her aunt’s eyes. Lady 
Tallis nursed her with more than needful devo- 
tion. She was jealous of any person save her- 
self approaching her niece to render any service. 
The sound of Maud’s voice calling on her for the 
least tendance was music in her ears. She would 
even have liked the sick girl to be more exacting 
in her demands. And had Maud been the most 
fretful and imperious of invalids, instead of be- 
ing, as she was, thoroughly patient and self-con- 
trolled, Lady Tallis would have joyfully indulged 
her in every whim. 

In a few days, however, the illness passed 
away, and Maud insisted on rising, although 
Lady Tallis declared that she ought not to leave 
her bed for at least another week to come. 

The vicar remained in London until Maud’s 
health was re-established. He lingered about 
the house in Gower Street fitfully, and would 
seldom consent to enter Lady T’allis’s apart- 
ments ; but he informed himself daily of his 
ward’s condition. 

At length, after rather more than a fortnight’s 
sojourn in London, he returned to Shipley. 

“ It is a horrible trial to go back,” said he, in 
his farewell interview with Maud. 

“Must you go. Uncle Charles?” she asked, 
her eyes brimming W'ith tears, which she kept 
from falling by a strong etfort of will. 

“ Must I ? Yes : I can not give up the vicar- 
age. I can not exist without it. I can not af- 
ford to pay another man to do my duty there, 
and retain enough to live upon. I might put 
oft' the evil day a wliile longer. But to what 
purpose ? The sight of the place — the very name 
of the place — is loathsome to me. But wiiat can 
I do?” 

“ I wish I could help you !” 

“ You can not help me, Maudie. No one can 
help me. ” 


41 


VERONICA. 


Then Maud asked a timid faltering question, 
holding his hand and turning away her head as 
she spoke. Had he heard any tidings of — of — 
the fugitives ? 

She could not see his face, hut his voice was 
very stern and deep as he answered her. They 
had gone abroad together, he had learned. Gone 
to Italy. It mattered nothing to what place. 
She was dead to him henceforward. Maud must 
mention her name no more. He had answered 
her question ; but she must promise never to 
speak to him of his lost daughter more. 

“I ca7i not promise it, dear Uncle Charles,” 
said Maud, no longer able to restrain her tears. 

‘ ‘ Maud ! Do not you separate yourself from 
me too !” 

“No, no! I shall always love you, and be 
grateful to you. But I — I can not make that 
promise. Some day you niight be glad yourself 
that I did not make it.” 

Mr. Levincourt rose. “Good-by, Maud,” he 
said, abruptly. “The time is drawing near for 
my departure. I haA'e but a couple of hours be- 
fore leaving London.” 

He went out and closed the door. 

She heard his footsteps descending the stairs 
slowly and heavily. He paused, came back, and 
re-entering the room where Maud was silently 
W'eeping, took her in his arms and kissed her 
forehead. She clung to him, sobbing. “Oh, 
thank you, ’ she murmured — “thank you for 
coming back. You are not angry Avith me, dear 
Uncle Charles ?” 

“ No, no; not angry — never angry Avith thee, 
my SAveet childie. God bless thee, Maud ! God 
forever bless thee !” 

“You will Avrite to me. Uncle Charles, Avill 
you not ?” 

“ I — perhaps — aa'cII, Avell, I will Avrite to you.” 

“And I may come and stay AA'ith you again 
some day? If even it is but for a time, I may 
come ? You Avill be so lonely I” she added, Avith 
a passionate burst of tears. 

“ HeaA’en knoAvs, my child! It may be that 
some day — ■ Good-by, Maud. God Almighty 
bless and guard you forever!” 

Then he AA'ent aAvay. 

Lady Tallis’s intentions in her behaA’ior to her 
niece Avere all kindness, but it often happened 
that she inflicted pain from AAmnt of judgment. 
But on the evening of the day on Avhich the above 
intervieAv took place Lady Tallis’s garrulity Avas 
grateful to Maud’s feelings. So long as her aunt 
Avould talk on indifferent subjects, and let her 
listen in silence, or at most Avith the occasional 
contribution of a monosyllable, the young girl 
AA'as able to retain a calmness and quietude that 
Av^ere soothing to mind and body. 

Lady Tallis’s conversation rambled on dis- 
cursively from topic to topic. She talked of 
scenes familiar to her own childhood, and of 
l)ersons Avho died before Maud Avns born, as 
though the latter must naturally be thoroughly 
acquainted Avith Avhat she kneAV so Avell. 

All at once she laid doAvn her AAmrlc, and ex- 
claimed : “ Oh, by-the-by, noAV ! There’s some- 
thing I particularly Avanted to say to ye, and I 
have never said it yet!” 

Maud Avas beginning to understand that her 
aunt’s emphasis Avas by no means always pro- 
portioned to the importance of that Avhich she 
had to say ; at least as far as she (Maud) could 


judge of the relatiA'e amount of importance that 
could fairly be attributed to Lady Tallis’s speech- 
es. She Avas, therefore, less startled than she 
might have been a fortnight earlier by her aunt’s 
impressive announcement. 

“What is it that you AA’anted to saA% Aunt 
Hilda?” 

“ Why, my goodness, my darling child, I avou- 
der hoAv in the world I never asked the question 
before ! It has been in my mind hundreds of 
times !” 

Maud AA^aited patiently, Avith an attentive face. 

“Hoav in the world did you and Mr. LeA’in- 
court find out that I was living here? D’ye 
knoAV, my dear pet, I am perfectly astonished to 
remember that I Avas not more astonished at the 
time! Can A'e understand that state of mind? 
It Avas all such a whirl, such a sudden, unex- 
pected kind of thing altogether, that I suppose a 
little wonder more or less didn’t make much dif- 
ference !” 

‘ ‘ Our coming straight to the place AA'here you 
lived was a mere chance. Aunt Hilda. We 
came here Avith merely a hope, and not a very 
strong one, that we might get your address from 
Mrs. LockAvood. And even then Ave should not 
have found you, had not Uncle Charles’s card 
been carried up to Mrs. LockAvood Avith an in- 
quiry for Lady Tallis Avi itten on it. Otherwise, 
as you are now Lady Gale, Ave should have 
missed you, though you Avere so close to us. 
But Mrs. LockAvood knew at once that you Avere 
the person Ave AA’ere asking for.” 

“And did ye knoAv Mrs. LockAA^ood? Why 
noAv, just imagine her never mentioning in the 
most distant manner that she had the smallest 
acquaintance Avith any of the family ! I declare 
it’s most extraordinary! And the times I have 
spoken to her of my niece ! For, my darling, I 
needn’t say that if Ave hav'e been separated all 
these years, it has not been from any indiffer- 
ence on my part !” 

Maud quietly explained that she had never 
seen or known Mrs. Lockwood, but that she had 
met her son at a country house ; and that he 
had spoken of Lady Tallis, and of the manner 
in Avhich he and his mother had made her lady- 
ship’s acquaintance. 

“It’s all perfectly true, my dear, CA^ery sylla- 
ble of it!” said Lady Tallis, Avith as much so- 
lemnity of corroboration as though Maud had 
expressed the gravest doubts of IMr. Hugh Lock- 
AA^ood’s veracity. 

“ Yes, aunt ; I did not feel any doubt of 
that,” she ansAvered. 

“ No, ye need not, child. An exceeding ami- 
able and gentleman-like young man he is. And 
his mother is a delightful person. I called on 
her according to promise, Avhen I came to Lon- 
don. I Avas staying in a boarding-house ; and 
that’s Avhat I Avould never advise any one I cared 
for to do the longest day they had to liA^e ! Oh, 
upon my honor and Avord, the dreariness and 
misery of the boarding-houses I haA'e been in 
exceed description. I thought I Avould find 
something like society, but, oh dear me! the 
people you have to put up Avith are something 
unspeakable ! HoAvever, that Avasn’t what I Avas 
going to tell ye. Well, I asked Mrs. LockAvood 
did she happen to knoAV of any respectable lodg- 
ing in her neighborhood. For I AA'as resoh'ed 
to get quit of boarding-houses altogether. And 


42 


VERONICA. 


I wished to be within hail of some human being 
that would say a kind word to me once a month 
or so; for, indeed, child, I was very lonely.” 

“Poor Aunt Hilda!” whispered Maud, strok- 
ing Lady Tallis’s thin hand. 

‘‘Oh, indeed ye may say ‘rich Aunt Hilda,’ 
now I have you, Maudie. Here, let me put this 
foot-stool under our feet. Nonsense, child, about 
‘ troubling myself. ’ You’re not half as strong yet 
as you fancy yourself. There! Well, so just 
fancy my delight when she said that she would 
be very glad to let the first-floor of her own 
house to a person that she knew ! My dear, I 
jumped at it. And here I am, and extremely 
comfortable it is. And cheap. For you know, 
my dear child, that he keeps me shamefully short 
of money. Sometimes I have much ado to get 
any at all. Well, there, then, we won’t say any 
more on that score just now. But ye’ll like Mrs. 
Lockwood — oh, indeed ye will !” 

“Is she — I mean is her son at all like her?” 

“ Not the very least bit in the world,” rejoined 
Lady Tallis, with a sort of almost triumphant 
emphasis. “Not one atom. I never, in the 
whole course of my days, saw a mother and son 
more entirely unlike each other.” 

“Oh!” 

“ Entirely unlike each other. Why, now, the 
young man — Hugh — is a strapping handsome 
young fellow as you’d be likely to meet in a long 
summei'’s day. Isn’t he ?” 

“Oh yes.” 

“Oh yes ! Upon my honor, you don’t seem 
more than half to agree with me. But I can 
tell you that if you don’t think Hugh Lockwood 
a remarkably fine young man, you are more fas- 
tidious than the girls used to lae in my time. It 
may be true that he hasn’t quite the grand air. 
And if you are as much of a Delaney as your 
poor grandpapa you may object to that. Hugh 
certainly is tant soit pen bourgeois.” 

“Oh, I thought, Aunt Hilda — we all thought 
at Lowater House — that Mr. Lockwood was thor- 
oughly a gentleman.” 

“Well, I’m delighted to hear it. I fancied 
you were turning up your nose at him a little. 
How flushed you are, child ! Let me feel your 
forehead. No ; there’s no appearance of fever. 
And now the color is fading away again. I shall 
send you to bed at nine o’clock — not a moment 
later.” 

“ Very well. Aunt Hilda. But you were say- 
ing — that — that Mrs. Lockwood — ” 

“Oh, to be sure! Yes; let me see. Mrs. 
Lockwood — Oh, now I have it ! I was say- 
ing that she is so unlike her son, wasn’t 1? 
Well, she is. He is, as I said, a strapping, ro- 
bust-looking creature. I suppose he inherits 
his burliness from his peasant ancestors. His 
father’s father, you know, was — Ah! you do 
know all about it? Yes— quite rustics." And 
Hugh is not in the least ashamed of his grand- 
father.” 

“ Ashamed ! Why should he be ashamed ?” 

“Well, my dear, if you come to that, why 
should we be proud of our ancestors ? Upon my 
word, I don’t know. Still, there is a kind of 
feeling. However, Hugh is too manly and up- 
right for any mean pretensions, and I quite re- 
spect him for it. But as to his mother, she is 
the tiniest fairy of a woman you ever saw in all 
your days. She really is more like one of the 


‘ good people’ that our old nurse at Delaney used 
to tell us about than any thing else — in size, I 
mean — for there is nothing fantastic about her.” 

“I am sure to like her for her kindness to 
you. Aunt Hilda.” 

“ Indeed, she is very kind. And so thought- 
ful! and has such good manners! She came 
every day while you were in bed, and inquired 
about you. But she never intrudes. But I 
thought of asking her to take tea with us quiet- 
ly some evening, if you don’t mind. For now 
her son is not at home, she is lonely too. And 
before I had you, Maudie, I was very glad of 
Mrs. Lockwood’s company.” 

Maud, of course, begged that lier aunt wmuld 
invite Mrs. Lockwood as often as she chose. 
But in truth she shrank from the sight of a 
stranger. There was no hour of the day when 
Veronica W'as absent from her thoughts. There 
had been no preparation for the tenific blow 
that had fallen. She had bade Veronica fare- 
well that night at Lowater House with no faint- 
est foreshadowing of what was to come. She 
tormented herself sometimes with the idea that 
if she (Maud) had returned to the vicarage and 
remained with Veronica the evil would not have 
happened. There were moments when she 
longed, with a painfully intense longing, to set 
forth to follow the unhappy girl, to find her, and 
bring her back, and soothe and cherish her, and 
shelter her among them again. She could not 
understand that her guardian should abandon 
his daughter without an effort. Then the doubt 
arose whether Veronica herself would consent 
to return. 

“ If I could go to her, see her, and persuade 
her, she would come back ; she would leave that 
dreadful man. She can not care for him — ” 

So ran her thoughts. And then the remem- 
brance would startle her like a sudden blow, that 
the man w'as the husband of her mother’s sis- 
ter; and she would hide her face in her trem- 
bling hands, and shudder wdth a confused sensa- 
tion of terror. 

She was spared the spectacle of any acute suf- 
fering on the part of her aunt. 

Lady Tallis made no pretensions to outraged 
wifely aft’ection. All such sentiment had been 
killed in her long years ago. But there was a 
curious phase of feeling — the last faint protest 
of her trampled self-respect — the one drop of 
gall in her submissive nature — which made her 
regard Veronica with something as near rancor 
as could be entertained by a character so flavor- 
less, meek, and weak. 

Maud shrank with instinctive delicacy from 
any mention of Veronica to the wife of Sir John 
Gale. But her aunt had voluntarily spoken of 
the vicaris daughter on one or two occasions ; 
and had mentioned her in terms that caused 
IMaud the most exquisite pain. The relations of 
the latter to all concerned in this misery and 
shame were peculiarly complicated and delicate. 
And the sorrowing girl strove to hide her grief. 
Maud’s was still the same nature "which had 
caused Mrs. Levincourt to characterize her as 
“stolid” and “unfeeling,” when she had sup- 
pressed her childish tears at sight of the strange 
faces in her new home. Mrs. Levincourt never 
knew that the pillow in the little crib had been 
wetted that first night with bitter, but silent 
tears. Maud could bear the pain of her' wound, 


VERONICA. 


43 


but she could not bear that it should be ap- 
proached by a coarse or unsympathizing touch. 

For all these reasons, and from the knowl- 
edge, speedily acquired, that her aunt was too 
entirely devoid of dignity to be reticent upon 
any subject which it entered her head to discuss, 
Maud looked forward with nervous dread to the 
introduction of Mrs. Lockwood into Lady Tal- 
lis’s drawing-room. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE LOCKWOODS. 

ZiLLAH Lockwood was a very remarkable- 
looking woman. It was not merely the small- 
ness of her stature that made her so. She was, 
as Lady Tallis had said, extremely fragile and 
fairy-like, with very delicate, well-formed hands 
and feet, and an upright straight figure. But 
this small, frail creature conveyed an almost 
startling impression of power and resolution : 
power of an undemonstrative, steady, suppressed 
kind. 

“How enchantingly pretty Mrs. Lockwood 
must have been!” was the exclamation of nine 
people out of ten, after seeing her for the first 
time. 

Those who remembered Zillah Lockwood in 
her youth declared that she had been enchant- 
ingly pretty. But it majt be doubted whether 
she had ever been so, in uie strict sense of the 
word. There could be no doubt, however, that 
hers must always have been a singularly attract- 
ive face. And it was perhaps even more gener- 
ally attractive at fifty years of age than it had 
been at twenty. She had an abundance of gray 
hair, soft, fine, and carefully dressed. Her fore- 
head was low and broad ; hsr eyes were black 
and sparkling, but their lids were discolored, and 
there was a faded, weary look about the whole 
setting and surrounding of her eyes that contrast- 
ed with the fresh, delicate paleness of the rest of 
her complexion. 

“ Crying spoils the eyes. Years ago I cried, 
almost incessantly, for six weeks,” she once said, 
quietly, to one who remarked this peculiarity of 
her face. “ At last they told me that I was risk- 
ing total loss of sight. So then I got frightened, 
and left off v’eeping — with my eyes.” 

Her jaw was slightly what is called under- 
hung, and when the lips met and closed firmly 
(as they habitually did when her face was in re- 
pose) this peculiarity gave an expression of sin- 
gular resolution to her mouth. It looked as 
though it were forcibly compressed by a special 
effort of her will. The upper lip was thin and 
straight. When she spoke, she showed two per- 
fect ranges of small sharp teeth. 

Her whole person was pervaded by an air of 
scrupulous and dainty neatness. JShe always 
wore black, and her head was adorned, not cov- 
ered, by a white muslin cap, whose crisply-frilled 
border of delicate lace was a marvel of freshness. 
The collar at her throat and the cuffs at her 
wrists were of plain linen in the morning, of lace 
in the evening, and in either case were guiltless 
of soil or stain. 

“How she does it in this smoky London is 
more than I can conceive!” would poor Lady 
Tallis exclaim, casting a pathetic glance on her 


own dingy and crumpled garments. But her 
ladyship was one of those unfortunate persons 
for whose clothes dust and smoke and stains seem 
to have a mysterious attraction. “ Smuts” fiew 
to her collar, and settled there fondly. Dust 
eddied round her in sufibcating clouds whenever 
she ventured into the streets, or else she found 
herself wading ankle -deep in mud. Gravy 
splashed itself over her sleeves at dinner ; ink 
pervaded her attire when she wrote a letter ; and 
the grease from lamp or candle dropped on her 
silk garment with a frequency which almost 
seemed to argue conscious malice. 

The first impression which Maud Desmond 
derived from Mrs. Lockwood’s appearance and 
manner was a sense of relief. 

She had half expected a vulgar, bustling, good- 
natured, noisy woman. Maud had gained suf- 
ficient knowledge of Lady Tallis to be aware 
that her perceptions were not acute, nor her taste 
refined. Indeed Maud, in pondering upon her 
aunt’s character, was frequently brought face to 
face with problems, the pursuit of which would 
have led her into deeper specuiations than she 
contemplated attempting. Why was this wo- 
man, gently born and bred, endowed with blunt- 
er sensibilities, duller brains, coarser — yes, truly 
coarser — manners than the poor widow of a hum- 
ble artist, who sprang from mean obscurity and 
eked out her living as a letter of lodgings ? Why, 
of the two sisters, Hilda and Clara Delaney, had 
one been a refined, graceful, elegant gentlewo- 
man, and the other — such a woman as Lady 
Tallis? Maud remembered her mother, and 
contrasted her bearing and manners with Lady 
Tallis’s. Had Clara Desmond pronounced any 
woman to be kind, thoughtful, and well-man- 
nered, those persons who knew the speaker would 
have expected the object of her praise to be one 
whose society might be pleasant to the most fas- 
tidious. But when Hilda Tallis used the same 
phrases, Maud perfectly understood that they 
must be accepted with due reservations. 

Her first sensation on meeting Mrs. Lockwood 
was, therefore, as has been stated, a sensation of 
relief. It was soon evident that there was no 
fear of Mrs. Lockwood’s failing in discrimina- 
tion or tact. 

“You met my son at LoAvater House, Miss 
Desmond ?” said Mrs. Lockwood, stitching away 
with nimble fingers at the hem of a handker- 
chief. She had been drinking tea with Lady 
Tallis, and had seen Maud for the first time that 
evening. 

“Yes. Mr. Lockwood was staying there at 
the same time with myself.” 

“ Captain Sheardown has always been very 
kind to Hugh. His father. Admiral Shear- 
down, was my husband’s earliest friend and ])a- 
tron. The admiral had a great taste for art.” 

“So had poor papa!” exclaimed Lady Tallis. 
“I remember Clara — your dear mother, my pet 
— had a very pretty taste for flower- painting. 
And papa had a master from Dublin to stay 
in the house nearly the Avhole of one summer 
on Clara’s aecount. My brother James and I 
couldn’t enjure him I Sure he Avas the snuffiest 
old wretch ye can imagine. We would plague 
his life out b}'^ hiding his snuff-box.” 

“1 expect Hugh home next week,” pursued 
Mrs. Lockwood, calmly. 

“And, indeed, I will be delighted to see him 


44 : 


VERONICA. 


again,” said her ladyship. “He is a pearl of 
young men.” 

“ I don’t know about being a pearl,” said Mrs. 
Lockwood; “ but Hugh is a good son. I think 
he is on the whole a good man.” 

“Of course he is! Why wouldn’t he be? 
Hugh is an excellent creature.” 

“It is a bold assertion to make. In all my 
life I have only met with two good men. ” 

“Well now, on my honor, I do believe there 
are a great many good men in the world — if one 
only knew where to find them!” said Lady Tal- 
lis. Then she added, “As for you, you ought to 
go down on your knees, and thank Heaven for 
such a son as Hugh. Oh, if I had only had a 
boy like that I’d have doted on him !” 

The faintest possible smile flitted over Mrs. 
Lockwood’s face. She kept her eyes fixed on her 
work, as she answered, “I have a sneaking kind- 
ness for Hugh myself. But he has his faults.” 

“ I don’t believe he has a fault in the world !” 
protested Lady Tallis, energetically. 

“I can assure you that he has, though! 
Among others— »-obstinacy. Hugh is very ob- 
stinate. Ask Miss Desmond if she did not get 
the impression that my son has a strong will of 
his own.” 

Maud had been listening silently to the talk 
of the two elder women, and had been watch- 
ing Mrs. Lockwood’s fltce with an intentness 
that would have been ill-mannered had it not 
been for the fact that the latter kept her eyes 
cast down on her work, and so was unconscious 
of the young girl’s close observation. IMaud 
was a little disconcerted Avhen the heavy dark 
lids were suddenly raised, and the bright eyes 
beneath them were fixed upon her own. 

“Oh, I — I don’t know,” she said. “I sup- 
pose a man ought to have a strong will.” 

“ And a woman — ?” 

“Oh, a woman,” interrupted Lady Tallis, 
“must just make up her mind to have no will 
at all ! You may fight and struggle, but a man 
is always the strongest, au bout du compte! 
And as he has all the power, I don’t see what 
use her will can be to a woman !” 

“Is that your philosophy. Miss Desmond?” 

“Oh, I? I don’t think I have any philoso- 
phy,” answered Maud, simpl\\ 

“ At all events, rightly or wrongly, my son 
is obstinate, and he wishes to take a step that 
I think ought to be deferred yet a while. He 
is dying to set up on his own account, as the 
phrase goes. Digby and West, to whom he was 
articled, have offered to keep him in their office, 
on advantageous terms, for a couple of years. I 
say, hold fast your one bird in the hand ! Hugh 
hankers after the two in the bush. We shall see. 
I am afraid Captain Sheardown’s councils have 
confirmed Hugh in his desire. My son writes 
me that several of his father’s old friends in the 
neighborhood of Shipley and Danecester have 
been encouraging him to make the attempt; 
and have been promising him all sorts of things. 
Hugh is only twenty-four years old ; and he be- 
lieves most of what is said to him.” 

“I am quite sure,” said Maud, with some 
warmth, “ that Captain Sheardown would say 
nothing that he did not mean.” 

“ Doubtless. But promises impossible of ful- 
fillment are made with the most perfect sincerity 
every day.” 


After a little more desultory chat Mrs. Lock- 
wood folded up her work, and went away, say- 
ing that she would leave Miss Desmond to go to 
rest ; and that she would prepare with her own 
liand a basin of arrow-root for the supper of Lady 
Tallis, who was not looking strong, she said. 
“ My arrow-root is excellent, I assure you,” said 
Mrs. Lockwood to Maud. “Her ladyship will 
give me a certificate. I am a very fair cook, am 
I not, my lady ?” 

“ Indeed, then, I don’t know the thing you can 
not do, if you try ! ” said Lady Tallis, enthusiast- 
ically. And, when Mrs. Lockwood was gone, 
she descanted to Maud on their landlady’s tal- 
ents and good qualities in a strain of unmixed 
eulogy. 

“Now, are you not enchanted with her?” she 
asked of her niece. 

“ I — ^yes ; I like her very much. She is very 
clever, I think.” 

“ Oh, clever’s no word for it. She is an ex- 
traordinary little creature ; quite extraordinary. 
You don’t know all that’s in that head of hers 
yet, I can assure you. ” 

“I should imagine that she has known much 
sorrow and trouble, ” said Maud, musingly. ‘ ‘ I 
wonder what her history is !” 

“Oh, as to that,” rejoined her ladyship, to 
whom the suggestion a])peared to be a new one, 
“I don’t suppose she has much of a history at 
all. How would she? She and her husband 
w'ere quite humble pqople.” 

“But, aunt, she has evidently received a good 
education, and she has the manners of a lady, 
moreover. Did you notice, too, in reading the 
title of that French book that lay on the table, 
how admirably she pronounced it ?” 

“My dear child, for that matter, we had a 
dancing-mistress once who spoke French beau- 
tifully ! And she was quite an ignorant person. 
Her father was a Parisian barber, we were told ; 
but she called herself Mademoiselle de Something 
or other. I forget the name now. Any way, 
Mrs. Lockwood is vastly superior to her!" 

The incoherence of these remarks, and the im- 
possibility of conjecturing what it was they in- 
tended to prove, silenced Maud. 

Presently Lady Tallis exclaimed, in a sudden, 
pouncing way, which her delicacy alone prevent- 
ed from being absolutely violent: “And ye 
haven’t told me yet how you like my little 
Queen of the Fairies !” 

“ Yes, aunt, I said that I liked ]\Irs. Lock- 
wood very much : only — ” 

‘ ‘ Only what ?” 

“ Weil, it seems rather a pity that she should 
take such a gloomy view of things, does it not ?” 

“Gloomy ! Now upon my word and honor a 
cheerfuler little creature I never saw or heard 
of! Tliat is my notion, my dear girl.” 

“Gloomy is not the right word, either.” 

“Very much the wrong word, I should say.” 

“Yes; but what I mean is, that — that — ' It 
is rather difficult to explain. Mrs. Lockwood is 
cheerful, but it is not because she finds things to 
be good, Aunt Hilda.” 

“ AVell, then, all the more credit to her for 
being cheerful.” 

“ 1 think she would be more likely to be cred- 
ulous of an evil i-eport than a good report ; not 
because she is ill-natured, hut because she ex- 
pects evil to happen, and thinks it likely. I am 


VERONICA. 


45 


sure that she must have had some great trouble 
ill her life.” 

At the beginning of the following week Hugh 
Lockwood returned home. 

He had, of course, already learned from his 
mother the fact that Lady Tallis and her niece 
were inmates of the house in Gower Street. 

He was able to inform his mother of many 
particulars of the blow which had fallen on the 
family at the vicarage. The whole country was 
ringing with the stoiy. Hugh had heard it dis- 
cussed in all sorts of tones, by all sorts of people. 
A great number were inclined to blame Mr. Lev- 
incourt severely for having been culpably negli- 
gent in regard to his daughter’s association with 
a man like Sir John Gale. On the other hand, 
many persons (especially matrons of Mrs. Beg- 
bie’s stamp) declared that bolts and bars would 
not have sufficed to keep Veronica Levincourt 
in respectable obscurity ; that they had always 
known, always seen, always prophesied, how it 
would end ; that the girl’s vanity and coquetry 
had long made them cautious of permitting her 
to associate with their daughters ; and that it 
was all very well to blame the man — of course 
he was a wretch ! no doubt of it! — but he must 
have been regularly hunted down, you know, 
by that artful, abandoned, dreadful, dreadful 
girl ! 

“There is nothing so cruel as the cruelty of 
one woman to another!” said Hugh, after re- 
counting some of these sayings to his mother. 

“Is there not?” said Mrs. Lockwood, com- 
posedly. ‘ ‘ And Mrs. Sheardown, ” she pursued, 
after a moment’s pause, “is she too among the 
number of the cruel ?” 

“No; Mrs. Sheardown could not be cruel! 
No, she is not cruel. But she is — even she is — 
a little hard on the girl.” 

‘ ‘ H’m ! Is this Miss Levincourt so very hand- 
some as they say? You have seen her?” 

“Yes; I saw her at Lo water. She is strik- 
ingly beautiful. I do not know that I ever saw 
such eyes and such coloring.” 

“And not vain or coquettish, as these ‘ cruel’ 
women say ?” 

“I — well, yes, I think she is fond of admira- 
tion. But her manner was very charming.” 

“ That is charming, Hugh ; that love of ad- 
miration. Masculine vanity is always tickled by 
the implied flatteiry of a pretty woman’s airs and 
graces. ” 

“ Flattery !” 

“To be sure. Haughty or espiegle, stately 
or languid, what a coquette wants is your atten- 
tion ; and that flatters you. How many men, 
do you suppose, would think Venus herself beau- 
tiful if she honestly did not care two straw's 
whether they looked at her or not ?” 

“Well, mother, despite my ‘masculine vani- 
ty,’ I can truly say that I never in all my life 
saw a girl whom I should have been less likely 
to fall in love with than Veronica Levincourt.” 

“ That was fortunate for you !” 

“ Good, kind Mrs. Sheardown thought me in 
some danger, I believe, for she dropped a word 
or two of warning — Tliat man must be as black 
a scoundrel as ever existed!” cried Hugh, sud- 
denly breaking off. 

“Is the identity of Sir John Gale with Sir 
John Tallis known in Shipley ?” 

“Yes; I had learned it from your letters. 


But, except to the Sheardowns, I said no word 
of the matter. But an old woman who was stay- 
ing at Hr. Begbie’s — a certain Betsy Boyce — 
wrote up to some gossip-mongering crony in Lon- 
don for information about Sir John Gale. , And 
in that way the whole story became known.” 

‘ ‘ Of course you did not see Mr. Levincourt 
again?” 

“No one has seen him except his own serv- 
ants and little Blew, the surgeon, since his daugh- 
ter’s flight.” 

“Not even in church ?” 

“Oh, in church, of course, he has been seen. 
The Sheardowns purposely staid away from St. 
Gildas the first Sunday after the vicar’s return. 
But I was told that the rustics, who compose the 
majority of the congregation, behaved with more 
delicacy than might have been expected from 
them. They kept out of the vicar’s way on leav- 
ing church ; and those who did see him content- 
ed themselves with silently touching their hats, 
and passing on. By-the-w'ay, the person who 
told me all this is horribly cut up by this dread- 
ful affair. It is a certain Mr. Flew', a surgeon, 
and a really good little fellow'. The village gos- 
sips say that he was a bond-slave of Miss Levin- 
court. I never saw a man look more miserable. 
He fought her battles tooth and nail until it be- 
came known that Sir John Gale had a w'ife al- 
ready. Then, of course, there w'as no more to 
be said of the girl’s being married to him. But, 
although Flew is the milclest-looking little fellow 
you ever saw, I should not care to be in the shoes 
of any man w'ho spoke an ill word of Miss Levin- 
court in his presence. And the Shipley folks 
understand this so well, that if a group of them 
are discussing the vicar’s daughter, they break 
otf at Flew’s approach as though he were her 
brother. He is a loyal little fellow, and I am 
sorry for him w’ith all my heart.” 

“ He must be a very uncommon sort of man,” 
observed Mrs. Lockwood, dryly. 

“Ah, mother, mother !” exclaimed Hugh, kiss- 
ing her forehead, and looking at her half fondly, 
half sadly, “ our old quarrel ! I can not under- 
stand how it is that such a good woman as you 
are should find it so hard to believe in good- 
ness.” 

o 

CHAFTER III. 

IN mil. frost’s sanctum. 

Messrs. Frost and Lovegroye, solicitors, 
had their offices in a large old house in Bedford 
Square. The whole of the, ground-floor w'as used 
for offices. In the upper part of the house lived 
the family of the junior partner. 

The chief reason for selecting the locality of 
the offices — which did not sound, Mr. Lovegrove 
said, an altogether “professional” address — 
was that he might enjoy the advantage of resid- 
ing at his place of business ; of being, as he w’as 
fond of mentioning, “on the spot.” 

“That is exactly w'hat I don't w'ant,”said jMr. 
Frost. . And accordingly he inhabited a house 
at Bayswater. 

But the LovegroA'es, especially the female 
Lovegroves, declared in family conclave that Mr. 
Frost lived at Baysw'ater rather than at Bedford 
Square because Mrs. Frost deemed Bedford Square 
vulgar. She was reported to have asked where 


46 


VERONICA. 


it was, with a vague air of wonder, as of an in- 
quirer into the geography of Central Africa. And 
Augustus Lovegrove, Junior, the only son of the 
family, gave an imitation of Mrs. Frost setting 
out to visit her husband’s oflSce, furnished with 
a sandwich-case and a flask of sherry, as though 
for a long journey ; and mimicked the tone of 
fashionable boredom in which she asked the 
coachman where one changed horses to go to 
Bedford Square. But that, said his sisters, was 
only Gus’s fun. 

In fact, there Avas a suppressed, but not the less 
deadly, feud between the houses of Frost and 
Lovegrove on all social points. In their business 
relations the two partners seldom jarred. 

Mr. Frost was a much cleverer man than Mr. 
Lovegrove. He was also the better educated of 
the two, and nature had gifted him with a com- 
manding person and an impressive address. 

Mr. Lovegrove was a commonplace individual. 
He said of himself that he had a great power of 
sticking to business ; and he said truly. Mr. 
Frost entirely appreciated his partner’s solid and 
unobtrusive merits. He declared Lovegrove to 
be “ a thoroughly safe, dependable fellow. ” And 
the flavor of patronage in his approbation Avas in 
no degree distasteful to Mr. LoA-egvoA’e. 

In the office their respecth^e qualities and ac- 
quirements AA'ere the complement of each other ; 
and they agreed admirably. Out of the oflSce their 
vieAvs Avere so dissimilar as to be antagonistic. 

Mr. Lovegrove Avas a very devout High-Church- 
man, and shook his head graA’ely OA^er Mr. Frost’s 
Avant of orthodoxy. Indeed, to describe Mr. 
Frost’s opinions as unorthodox Avas to character- 
ize them Avith undue mildness. Mr. Frost Avas 
a confirmed skeptic, and his skepticism Avas near- 
ly allied to cynicism. 

There is a homely illustration, immortalized 
by the pen of a great modern Avriter, Avhich may, 
perhaps, convey an idea of the state of Mr. Frost’s 
mind. 

In one of that great Avriter’s Avell-knoAvn pages 
political reformers are AA'arned, Avhen they empty 
the dirty Avater out of the tub, not to send the 
baby Avhose ablutions haA^e been made in it float- 
ing down the kennel likeAvise. Get rid of the 
dirty Avater, by all means ; but — save the baby ! 

Noav Mr. Frost, it Avas to be feared, had not 
saved the baby. 

Then the Avomen of the tAvo families did not 
stand in amicable relations toward each other. 
Mrs. LoA'egrove Avas envious of Mrs. Frost, and 
Mrs. Frost Avas disdainful of Mrs. LovegroA^e. 

The tAvo husbands Avould occasionally remon- 
strate, each Avith the Avife of his bosom, respect- 
ing this inconvenient, not to say reprehensible, 
state of things ; and Avould openly, in marital 
fashion, Avonder Avhy the deuce the Avomen AV'ere 
so .spiteful and so silly ! 

“I Avish, Georgy, ’’Mr. Frost Avould say, “that 
you Avould behave Avith decent civility to LoA^e- 
groA^e’s Avife Avhen you meet her. She does not 
come in your Avay often. I think it A’ery selfish 
that you Avill not make the least effort to oblige 
me, Avhen I have told you so often hoAv serious 
an inconvenience it Avould be to me to have any 
coolness Avith Lovegrove.” 

“ Why can’t you get on Avith Mrs. Frost, Sa- 
rah?” Mr. Lovegrove Avould ask, gravely. “I 
and Frost never have a Avord together ; and tAvo 
more different men you Avould scarcely find.” 


But none the less did a feeling of animosity 
smoulder in the breasts of the two ladies. And 
perhaps the chief circumstance that preA'ented 
the feeling from breaking out into a blaze was 
the wide distance Avhich separates BaysAvater 
from Bedford Square. 

At the latter place Mr. Frost had a little pri- 
vate room, the last and smallest of a suite of 
three, opening one Avithin the other, Avhich looked 
on to a smoke-blackened yard some five feet 
square. Mr. Frost had shut out the vieAv of the 
opposite Avail by the expedient of haAung his Avin- 
doAv- frame filled Avith panes of colored glass. 
This diminished the already scanty quantity of 
daylight that Avas admitted into the room. But 
Mr. Frost neither came to his office very early 
nor remained there very late ; so that his Avork 
there was done during those hours of the day in 
Avhich, Avhen the sun shone at all, he sent his 
beams in through the red and purple panes of 
the AvindoAv. 

It Avas understood in the office that Avhen Mr. 
Frost closed the outer one of the green-baize 
double doors Avhich shut in his private room, he 
Avas not to be disturbed save on the most press- 
ing and important business. So long as only 
the inner door remained closed, Mr. Frost A\’’as 
accessible to six-and-eightpence-yielding mor- 
tals. But Avhen once the Aveight AAdiich usually 
kept the outer door open A\'as remoA'ed, and the 
dark green portal had sAvung to, Avith a SAvift 
noiseless passage of the cords OA'er their pulleys, 
then no clerk in the employ of the firm, scarcely 
even Mr. Lovegi'ove himself, AA'illingly undertook 
the task of disturbing the priA’acy of the senior 
partner. 

And yet one morning, soon after Hugh Lock- 
Avood’s return to London, Mrs. LockAA'Ood AA'alked 
into the offices at Bedford Square, and required 
that Mr. Frost should be informed of her pres- 
ence; despite the fact, carefully pointed out to 
her notice, that Mr. Frost’s room Avas shut by 
the outer door ; and that, consequently, Mr. 
Frost Avas understood to be particularly engaged. 

“I feel sure that Mr. Frost Avould see me if 
you Avould be good enough to take in my name,” 
said the little Avoman, looking into the face of 
the clerk Avho had spoken to her. 

There Avas something almost irresistible in the 
composed certainty of her manner. Neither 
Avere the lady-like neatness of her dress, and the 
soft, sweet, refined tone of her voice, Avithout 
their influence on the young man. 

“IlaA'e you an appointment?” he asked, hes- 
itating. 

“Not precisely an appointment for this spe- 
cial morning. But I have frequently been ad- 
mitted at this hour by Mr. Frost. If you aauII 
kindly take in my name to him, I am quite Avill- 
ing to assume the responsibility of disturbing 
him.” 


“Well, you see, ma’am, that’s just Avhat you 
can't do. The responsibility must be on my 
shoulders, Avhether it turns out that I am doing 
right or Avrong. HoAV'eA-er, since you say that 
Mr. Frost has seen you at this time before — 
Perhaps you can give me a card to take in to 
him.” 

Mrs. Lockwood took a little note-book out of 
her pocket, tore off a blank page, and Avrote on 
it Avith the neatest of tiny pencils, the initials 
Zj* l* 


VERONICA. 


47 


“ I have no card,” she said, smiling ; “ but if 
you will show Mr. Frost that paper I think you 
will find that he will admit me.” 

The clerk disappeared, and retunied in a few 
moments, begging the lady to step that way. 

The lady did step that way, and the green- 
baize door closed silently behind her short, trim, 
black figure. 

Mr. Frost was seated at a table covered with 
papers. On one side, and within reach of his 
hand, stood a small cabinet full of drawers. It 
was a handsome antique piece of furniture of 
inlaid wood, and would have seemed more suit- 
ed to a lady’s boudoir than to a lawyer’s office. 
But there was in truth very little of what Mr. 
Lovegrove called “the shop” about the furni- 
ture or fittings of this tiny sanctum. The pur- 
ple carpet was soft and rich, the walls were 
stained of a warm stone-color, and the two easy- 
chairs — the only seats which the small size of 
the room gave space for — were covered with 
morocco leather of the same hue as the carpet. 

Over the chimney-piece hung a landscape; 
one of the blackest and shiniest that Wardour 
Street could turn out. Mr. Frost called it (and 
thought it) a Salvator Rosa. 

The only technical belongings visible in the 
room were a few carefully-selected law books on 
a spare shelf near the window. 

“ Lovegrove does all the pounce and parch- 
ment business,” Mr. Frost was wont to say, jo- 
cosely. “He likes it.” 

But no client who had ever sat in the purple 
morocco easy-chair opposite to Mr. Frost failed 
to discover that, however much that gentleman 
might profess to despise those outward and visi- 
ble symbols of his profession which he charac- 
terized generically as pounce and parchment, yet 
he was none the less a keen, acute, practical, 
hard-headed lawyer. 

Mr. Frost looked up from his papers as Mrs. 
Lockwood quietly entered the room. 

His face wore a look of care, and almost of 
premature age ; for his portly upright figure, per- 
fectly dark hair, and vigor of movement betok- 
ened a man still in the prime of his strength. 
But his face was livid and haggard, and his eye- 
brows were surmounted by a complex series of 
wrinkles, which drew together in a knot, that 
gave him the expression of one continually and 
painfully at work in the solution of some weighty 
problem. 

He rose and shook hands with Mrs. Lock- 
wood, and then waved her to the chair opposite 
to his own. 

“Tell me at once,” he said, folding his hands 
before him on the table, and slightly bending for- 
ward as he addressed the widow, ‘ ‘ if your busi- 
ness is really pressing. I scarcely think there is 
another person in London whom I would have 
admitted at this moment.” 

“My business is pressing, and I am much 
obliged to you,” replied Mrs. Lockwood, looking 
at him steadily. 

“You think, with your usual incredulity, that 
I had no real occupation when your visit inter- 
rupted me. Sometimes, I grant you, I shut my- 
self in here for a little — Hah ! I was going to 
say peace ! for a little quiet, for leisure to think 
for myself, instead of hiring out my thinking 
faculties to other people. But to-day it was not 
so. Look here!” 


He pointed to the mass of papers under his 
hand (on the announcement of Mrs. Lockwood’s 
approach he had thrown a large sheet of blot- 
ting-paper over them), and fluttered them rapid- 
ly with his fingers. ‘ ‘ I have been going through 
these, and was only half-way when you came.” 

“ Bills?” said Mrs. Lockwood. 

“ Some bills, and some — Yes ; chiefly bills. 
But they all need looking at.” 

As he spoke he thrust them aside with a care- 
less gesture, which half hid them once more un- 
der the blotting-paper. 

Mrs. Lockwood’s observant eyes had per- 
ceived that one of them bore the heading of a 
fashionable milliner’s establishment. 

“I am sorry,” she said, “to interrupt the cal- 
culation of your wife’s bonnet bills ; but I really 
must intrude my prosaic business on your no- 
tice. ” 

“What a bitter little weed you are, Zillah!” 
rejoined Mr. Frost, leaning back in his chair and 
regarding her thoughtfully. 

“To?* have no right to say so.” 

“The best right; for I know you. I don’t 
complain — ” 

“ Oh ! you don’t complain !” she echoed, with 
a short, soft laugh. 

“No,” he proceeded; “I do not complain 
that your tongue is steeped in wormwood some- 
times ; for I know that you have not found life 
full of honey. Neither have I, Zillah. If you 
knew my anxieties, my sleepless nights, my — 
But yon would not believe me, even if I had time 
and inclination to talk about myself. What is 
it that yeu want with me this morning ?” 

“I want my money.” 

“ Have you come here to say that?” 

“That’s the gist of what I have come to say. 
I put it crudely, because shortly. But you and 
I know very well that that is always the burden 
of the tale.” 

“Do you expect me to take out a pocket- 
book full of bank-notes and hand them to you 
across the table like a man in a play ? But,” he 
added, after a momentary struggle with his own 
temper, “it is worse than useless for us to jan- 
gle. You are too sensible a woman to have 
come here merely for the pleasure of dunning 
me. Tell me what has induced you to take 
this step ?” 

‘ ‘ I desired to speak with you. To the first 
note I sent you, asking you to call in Gower 
Street, I got no answer — ” 

“ I was engaged day and night at the time. I 
meant to come to you as soon as I had an hour’s 
leisure.” 

■ “To the second note you replied that you 
w'ere going out of town for three days.” 

‘nt was quite true. I only got back last 
night.” 

“And therefore I came here this morning.” 

“Has any thing new happened?” 

“ Something new is always happening. Hugh 
is bent on setting up for himself. His father’s 
friends in the country have urged him to do so.” 

“ It would be folly on his part to leave Digby 
and West for the next year or so. I give this 
opinion just as I should if I were asked for ad- 
vice by a perfect stranger. You doubtless think 
that I am actuated by some underhand niotive.” 

“No; I do not think so. And, moreover, I 
should agree with you in your opinion, if I did 


48 


VERONICA. 


not know that Hugh is entitled to a sum of 
money which would suffice to make the experi- 
ment he contemplates a judicious instead of a 
rash one.” 

“I do not see that.” 

“Hugh, at all events, has the right to judge 
for himself.” 

“And you have the right to influence his 
judgment. ” 

“Sometimes I am tempted — nay, often, very 
often, I am tempted — to tell Hugh every thing, 
and let him fight his own fight. I am so tired 
of it!” 

“Tell him, then!” ejaculated Mr. Frost, im- 
patiently. “I, too, am weary, God knows!” 

“You have the power to put an end to your 
weariness and to my importunities. Do me jus- 
tice. After all, I am but claiming what is my 
own.” • • 

“It is your own. I know it. I have never 
sought to deny it. Y'ou can not say that I 
luvve.” 

He rose with a quick, irritable movement from 
his chair, and stood leaning against the mantle- 
piece, with his back to the empty grate. 

“Then why not restore it at once, and end 
this weary business ?” 

“Surely you must understand that such a sum 
is not to be had at a moment’s notice!” 

“A moment’s notice ! How many yeare is it 
since you promised me that it should be restored 
as soon as Hugh came of age ?” 

“I know, 1 know. But during this last year 
or two there have been embarrassments, and — 
and — difficulties.” • 

Mrs. Lockwood leaned her head on her hand 
and looked up at him. “Do you knoiv,” she 
said, slowly, “what I begin to be afraid of? 
That you have been telling me the truth lately, 
and that you really are in pecuniaiy difficulties !” 

The blood rushed darkly over the lawyer’s 
face, but he met her look with a smile and an 
ironical raising of the eyebrows. 

“Upon my word,” he said, “you are civil — 
and ingenious! You begin to be ‘afraid that I 
have been telling you the truth!’ I presume 
you have hitherto supposed that I kept your 
cash in hard, round, yellow sovereigns, locked 
up in a box, and that I had nothing to do but 
to take them out whenever I chose and hand 
them over to you ! I am sorry that I can not 
altogether dissipate your apprehensions. I have 
been telling you the truth, but, nevertheless, 
your money is safe!” 

The air of superiority in the man, his voice 
and bearing, were not without their efiect on 
!^Irs. Lockwood. She faltered a moment. Then 
she said, “You can at least name some time for 
a settlement, can you not ? Give me some ftxed 
date to look forward to. I have been very pa- 
tient.” 

“Look here, Zillah, I have a very advanta- 
geous thing in view. It will be highly lucrative, 
if it comes oft’ as I anticipate. It has been pro- 
posed to me to go abroad in the character of 
legal advisqr to a very wealthy and powerful 
English company, and — ” 

“To go abroad !” 

“Temporarily. For a few months merely. 
It is a question of obtaining a concession for 
some important works from the Italian govern- 
ment. If the aftair succeeds, I shall be in a po- 


sition not only to pay you back your own — that, ” 
he added, watching her face, “is a matter of 
course in any case — but to advance Hugh’s pros- 
pects very materially. Will you have a little 
more patience and a little more faith, and wait 
until the winter ?” 

“yix months?” said Mrs. Lockwood, weari- 
ly. 

“Yes; six months. Say six months ! And 
meanwhile — As for Hugh, since he knows no- 
thing, he will be suffering no suspense.” 

“ Hugh ? No, thank God ! If it had been a 
question of subjecting my son instead of myself 
to the grinding of hope deferred, the matter 
should have been settled in one way or the other 
years ago!” 

Mr. Frost looked at the small, frail figure be- 
fore him ; at the pale, delicate-featured face, 
framed in its soft gray curls ; and he wondered 
at the strength of resolution to endure that was 
expressed in every curve of her mouth, in the 
firmness of her attitude as she stood with her 
little nervous hands clasped in front of her, in 
the steadiness of the dark eyes whose setting 
was so woyi and tear-stained. 

“Good-by, Zillah,” he said, taking her hand ; 
“I will come to Gower Street soon.” 

“Yes; 3 'ou had better come. Hugh misses 
you. He wants to talk to you about his plans, 
he says.” 

“I shall give him the advice I told you — to 
stay with Digby and West for at least another 
year on the terms they offer. Bless m}’- life, it 
is no such hardship ! What hurry is there for 
him to undertake the responsibilities and cares 
of a professional man who has, or thinks he has,” 
added Mr. Frost, hastily correcting himself, “no- 
thing in the world to depend upon but his own 
exertions ?” 

Mrs. Lockwood made as though she were about 
to speak, and then checked herself with a little, 
quick sigh. 

“Zillah!” said Mr. Frost, taking again the 
hand he had relinquished, and bending down to 
look into her face, “there is something new! 
You have not told me all that is in 3 ’our mind.” 

“ Because what is in my mind on this subject 
is all vague and uncertain. But I fanc^’ — I 
think — that Hugh has fallen in love.” 

“ Ah, you are like the rest of the women, and 
put your real meaning into the postscript. I 
kneiv there was something \’ou had to say.” 

‘ ‘ J. did not mean to say it at all. It is only a 
surmise — ” 

“I have considerable faith in the accuracy of 
your surmises ; and it furnishes a likely enough 
motive for Hugh's hot haste to make himself a 
place in the world. Can you guess at the wo- 
man ?” 

“I know her. She is a girl of barely eight- 
een. She lives in mv house.” 

“ What ! that Lady— Lady— ” 

“ Lady Tallis Gale's niece. Miss Desmond.” 

“Stay! Where did I hear of her? Oh, I 
have it! Lovegrove is trustee under her mo- 
ther’s will. She has a mere pittance secured to 
her out of the wreck of her ftither’s fortune. Be- 
sides, those kind of people, though they may be 
almost beggars, would, ten to one, look down 
on your son from the height of their family 
grandeur. This girl’s ffither was one of the 
Bower-Desmonds, a beggarly, scatter-brained. 


VERONICA. 


49 


spendthrift, Irish — gentleman! I dare say the 
young lady has been taught to be proud of her 
(probably hypothetical) descent from a savage 
inferior to a Zulu Kaffir.” 

“ Very likely. But your eloquence is wasted 
on me. You should talk to Hugh. I’m afraid 
he has set his heart on this.” 

“ Set his heart ! Hugh is — how old ? Three- 
and-twenty ?” 

“ Hugh will be twenty-five in August.” 

‘ ‘ Ah ! Think of a woman of your experience 
talking of a young fellow of that age having ‘ set 
his heart’ on any thing! 'No doubt he has ‘ set 
his heart.’ And how many times will it be set 
and unset again before he is thirty ?” 

“ God forbid that Hugh should be such a man 
as some whom my experience has taught me to 
know !” 

“Humph! Just now this love on which 
Hugh has ‘ set his heart’ was a mere surmise on 
your part. Now you declare it to be a serious 
and established fact, and ‘ God forbid’ it should 
not be !” 

“When will you come?” asked Mrs. Lock- 
wood, disregarding the sneer. 

“I will come to-morrow evening if I can. 
You know that my time is not mine to dispose 

“ True. But it is sometimes easier to dispose 
of that which belongs to other people than of 
one’s own rightful property, is it not ?” 

With this Parthian dart Mrs. Lockwood dis- 
appeared, gliding noiselessly out of the small 
room through the next chamber, and acknowl- 
edging by a modest, quiet little bend of the 
head the respectful alacrity of the clerk Avho had 
first admitted her, in rising to open the door for 
her exit. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Z ILL ah’s story. 

The Avidow’s reflections as she thought over | 
her intervieAv with Mr. Frost Avere bitter enough. 

Her situation AV'as that of one Avho, in. endeav- 
oring to reach a Avished-for goal, has chosen the 
speciously green path over a morass, rather than 
the tedious, stony A\'ay, Avhich, although painful, 
Avould haA’e been safe. Noav the treacherous bog 
quaked beneath her faltering feet. But it Avas 
vain to look back. She must- proceed. To go 
foi'Avard Avith a step at once firm and light AA^as, 
she felt, her only chance of safety. And it AA'as 
but a chance. 

Years ago, Avhen Zillah LockAvood Avas a young 
Avoman and a neAvly-married Avife, Sidney Frost 
had — through the knoAvledge of certain passages 
in her life Avhich he had gained accidentally — 
come to have a secret poAver and influence over 
her. 

He had used his knoAvledge at first to protect 
her against the persecutions of a ruffian, and in 
so doing he fiad acted disinterestedly. 

Aftei'Avard he Avas tempted by circumstances 
to avail himself of the poAver he held over Zillah 
LockAvood in order to help himself forAA'ard in 
the Avorld. 

The case stood thus : 

Robert LockAvood and Sidney Frost were ear- 
Iv and intimate friends. When the former mar- 
ried JMiss Zillah Fenton — a governess in the fiim- 
D 


ily of a rich merchant, named Blythe, who liked 
pictures, and sought the society of the painters 
of pictures — Frost had still been cordially Avel- 
comed at his friend’s house. 

Miss Fenton Avas an orphan, Avithout a rela- 
tion in the Avorld. Her early life had been pass- 
ed in Paris ; and Mrs. Blythe said she had reason 
to believe that her father. Captain Fenton, had 
been a needy adA'enturer of disreputable charac- 
ter. But against the young lady no one had a 
Avord to say. 

At first the young couple AA'ere entirely happy. 
To the day of his death Robert LockAvood adored 
his Avife. He believed in her Avith the most ab- 
solute trust. He admired her talents. He AV'as 
guided by her advice. 

But Avhen, Avithin a feAv months of their mar- 
riage, Zillah became melancholy, nervous, and 
silent, Robert Avas painfully puzzled to account 
for the change in her. 

She declared herself to be quite Avell ; but her 
husband insisted on her seeing doctor after doc- 
tor, in the hope of discovering some cure for the 
unaccountable depression of sjhrits under Avhich 
she Avas suffering. 

It was all in vain, hoAvever. Robert AA^as in 
despair; and seriously contemplated sacrificing 
his connection and daily-rising reputation as an 
artist, in order to take his Avife abroad for total 
change of air and scene. 

A mere chance, connected Avith his profes- 
sional business, gave Sidney Frost a cleAv to the 
cause of the mysterious malady under Avhich his 
friend’s Avife Avas pining. The cleAv Avas furnish- 
ed by a feAv Avords dropped by a man of very vile 
character, a professional black-leg, Avho had come 
to London for a time to escape the too A’igilant 
attention of the Parisian police, and from Avhose 
clutches Mr. Frost Avas endeavoring to extricate 
a foolish young scape-grace, the son of one of his 
clients. 

His professional and natural acuteness enabled 
Sidney to make a shrewd guess at the real state 
of the case. He surprised Zillah one day, Avhen 
her husband Avas absent at his studio, into a con- 
fession that she kneAv this man. And after a 
little gentle cross-examination, the trembling 
Avoman burst into tear» and reA'ealed the Avhole 
story. 

Zillah ’s motherless youth had been passed in 
Paris, in the home of a father for Avhom it Avas 
impossible for her to feel either affection or re- 
spect. His associates Avere either men of his 
OAvn character, or young scions of rich or noble 
houses, Avho frequented Fenton’s shabby, taAvdry 
little salon for the purpose of enjoying the ex- 
citement of high play. 

• Amidst such surroundings Zillah grcAV to be 
sixteen ; little more than a child in years, but a 
Avoman in one sad and sordid phase of Avorld’s 
lore. Her notions of right and Avrong AA^ere sole- 
ly deriA^ed from her OAvn untutored instincts. 
These Avere, in the main, good and pure. But 
she AA^as ignorant, uncared for, motherless — and 
she fell. 

Coarse appeals to vanity or greed AA'Ould have 
been poAverless on Zillah. But the poor child 
Avas unable to resist the impulses of an undisci- 
plined heart. She scarcely even conceived that 
it behooved her to resist them. 

She believed the passionate protestations of 
love — protestations not AvholIJ' insincere Avhea 


50 


VERONICA. 


^/'^ttered — of a noble gentleman whom she looked 
up to as the ideal of every thing splendid and 
heroic. 

The story was trite. Its de'nouement was 
trite also, save in one particular. This one ex- 
ceptional particular was the unexpected and ab- 
surdly unreasonable despair of Zillah when she 
perceived that her god was an idol of clay — that 
lie had ceased to love her ; and when he inform- 
ed her, with a good deal of w'ell-bred dexterity, 
that he was about to make a manage de conve- 
nance at the urgent solicitation of his noble fam- 
ily, he was quite amazed at the girl’s violence, 
lie w'as willing to behave handsomely. But 
when Zillah started away in horror from his of- 
fers of money, like one who suddenly sees the 
flat, cruel head of a snake rear itself from a flow- 
er he has been caressing, M. le Vicomte was re- 
ally shocked. In what Fool’s Paradise had the 
girl been living, to give herself such mock-heroic 
airs? The daughter of le vieux Fenton! Que 
diable ! Ilis lordship began to look on himself 
as a victim, and to pity himself a good deal; 
which state of mind had the desirable effect of 
quenching the pity for her^ which the girl’s pale, 
passionate face and streaming eyes had aroused 
to a quite uncomfortable degree. 

Then came a second blow. Ckaptain Fenton 
was willing to receive his daughter back again, 
but on conditions against which the girl's whole 
nature rose up in revolt. He had discovered 
that his daughter w’as attractive. Why should 
she not assist him in that devil’s recruiting serv- 
ice, which he still carried on zealously, but wdth 
very fluctuating success ? 

In brief, to return to her father’s home would 
be to plunge into a black gulf of shame. Zillah 
told herself that she was desperate ; that she 
cared not what became of her ; but from her fa- 
ther and her father’s associates she shrank with 
a shuddering, invincible repulsion. 

Then the extraordinary reserve force of cour- 
age and endurance with which nature had en- 
dowed the girl made itself felt. She was eighteen 
years old, alone in Paris, and almost penniless. 
But she struggled like a strong swimmer buffet- 
ing the waves. She thought that she wished to 
die ; that the waters should close over her wretch- 
ed head, and let her be at rest. But her youth- 
ful, vigorous limbs struck out, as it were, invol- 
untarily. 

Then one watching on the shore stretched out 
— not a hand, not a warm, comforting human 
clasp, but — a staff to her aid. A dry, hard stick 
was held to her, and she clasped it. It was 
something to cling to. A woman who knew her 
history engaged Zillah to attend on her children, 
and to teach them English. ^ 

For five years the poor girl was a drudge 
whose physical fatigues and privations were the 
lightest and least regarded part of her sufferings. 
But she pursued her solitary way inflexibly. In 
teaching she learned. She worked with amazing 
industry to qualify herself for a better position ; 
and she succeeded. Her blameless life and iin- 
wearying activity had softened even her mistress’s 
dry heart toward her ; and when Meess Fenton 
left her employment this woman gave her such 
recommendations as procured for her a situation 
in England. 

From that time her w’orldly prospects seemed 
clear and tranquil. 


After a year or two she had known Robert 
Lockwood, and the world was changed for her. 

“ I loved him so!” said Zillah, sobbing, to Sid- 
ney Frost. “I had thought I should never love 
any human being more, and that men were all 
false, sensual, and selfish. But he came to me 
like God’s sunshine after the long, black winter. 
I felt young again, I who had deemed myself old 
at five-and-twenty. I ought to have told him all 
my miserable story. I had many a struggle with 
my conscience about it. But — but — Robert 
honored me so highly. He had such an exalted 
ideal of what a Avoman ought to be. I Avas a 
coward. I dared not risk losing him. I had 
been so unhappy, so unhappy ! I think none 
but a Avoman can understand what I had suffer- 
ed. And here Avas a glimpse of Paradise. Was 
I to speak the Avord Avhich might bar me out for- 
ever, back into the desolate cold to die ? I could 
not do it. I thought ‘Avhen Ave are married, 
Avhen he has learned to believe in my great love 
for him, and to trust me as his faithful Avife, I 
Avill kneel down and hide my face on his knees, 
and tell him.’ But as I learned to knoAV him 
better, I found Avhat a fatal mistake I had made 
in delaying my confession. You knoAV Robert. 
He says that he could never again trust any one 
Avho had once deceived him. The first time he 
said so a knife AA’^ent into my heart. Oh, if I had 
but told him at first, he might liaA-e pitied, and 
forgiven, and loved me! for, God knoAV's, I Avas 
more sinned against than sinning. I Avas but 
sixteen. Think of it ! Sixteen years old ! 
W‘ell, this concealment bore bitter fruit. ]\Iy 
father has been dead three years ; but recently 
one of his old associates, the man you have been 
speaking of, came to London, found me out, and 
came to me for assistance ; being always, as all 
his kind are, either flush of money or a beggar. 
My horror at sight of him ; my dread lest Rob- 
ert, Avho Avas at the studio, should return and 
find him, shoAved him, I suppose, Avhat hold he 
had upon me. From soliciting alms, he came 
to demanding money like a higliAvayman. 1 gave 
him Avhat I could. Since then he has persecuted 
me, until life is almost unendurable. I see Rob- 
ert’s anxiety; I am tormented for him. But I 
dare not tell the truth. This Avretch threatens 
me, if I do not comply Avith his demands, that 
he will tell my proud English husband all the 
history of my youth. Y'ou, Avho knoAv something 
of the man, can .conjecture in Avhat a hideous 
light he Avould put the facts he has to relate. 
If Robert Avere to spurn me and despise me, I 
should die. Oh, I am afraid ! It is so horrible 
to be afraid !” 

Sidney listened sympathetically. He Avas (as 
is not uncommon) better than his creed, Avhich 
AA^as already a somewhat cynical one. He 
soothed and encouraged Mrs. LockAvood ; prom- 
ised to rid her of the scoundrel forcA’er; and 
adroitly said a Avord or tAvo to the eflect that she 
had better not trouble her husband Avith so an- 
noying and contemptible a matter. • 

“ I knoAV Robert A^ery Avell,” said he ; “ and I 
am sure he Avould not rest until he had thrashed 
our French friend soundly. Noav a kicking more 
or less in his life Avould not matter to him at all. 
It Avould put Robert in the Avrong too, and dis- 
tress you. I undertake to punish tlie miscreant 
much more effectually.” 

IIoAV he managed to get rid of her tormentor 


VERONICA. 


51 


Zillah never certainly knew ; but the man dropped 
out of her life never to reappear in it. 

Sidney Frost was actuated chiefly by motives 
of kindness toward the Lockwoods. Whatever 
this woman’s past might have been, she made his 
friend a good wife. Robert idolized her. He 
was happy in his unfaltering faith in her. But 
he would not have been able to be happy had his 
faith once been shaken. That was the nature 
of the man. Frost would serve both husband 
and wife, and would keep his own counsel. 

Added to all these considerations, there was 
another incentive influencing his conduct: the 
professional zest, namely, with which he contem- 
plated balking a rascal’s schemes — a zest quite 
as far removed from any consideration of ab- 
stract right and wrong as the eagerness of a fox- 
hunter is removed from moral indignation against 
the thievish propensities of the fox. 

The two years that ensued were the happiest 
Zillah had ever known or was fated to know. 
She was the joyful mother of a son. Her hus- 
band’s fame and fortune rose day by day. Sid- 
ney Frost never reminded her of the secret they 
shared between them by word or look. And she 
had grown almost to regard the days of her mis- 
ery and degradation as something unreal, like 
the remembrance of a bad dream. 

But a change was at hand. 

Robert Lockwood fell ill. His was not a rap- 
id, alarming disorder, but a slow wasting away, 
as it seemed. A short time before his health 
began to fail he had yielded to the urgent solici- 
tation of his friend Sidney Frost, and had con- 
fided to the latter a large sum of money — the 
savings of his life — to be invested in certain spec- 
ulations which Sidney guaranteed to be highly 
flourishing ; and, as has been previously stated, 
Sidney, in accepting the trust, honestly meant to 
fulfill it with a single-minded view to his friend’s 
advantage. 

Then came temptation : a combination of 
temptations. He needed a large sum to com- 
plete the amount necessary for the purchase of a 
share in a flourishing legal business. On his ob- 
taining the share depended his marriage with a 
woman whom he passionately loved. He used 
the greater portion of Lockwood’s money for this 
• purpose. He described the transaction to him- 
self thus : “ Robert shall And this a better invest- 
ment than any I proposed to him. The business 
is as safe as the Bank of England. With an in- 
fusion of skill and energy such as I can bring to 
it, wealth, great wealth, is absolutely certain. I 
horroio Robert's money at handsomer interest 
than he could easily obtain in any other way!” 

All the while he was desperately ashamed and 
troubled in his inmost heart. 

Zillah had been told by her husband of his 
having conflded his money to Frost. She had 
almost as undoubting faith in their friend as Rob- 
ert had. But she asked, “You have a formal 
acknowledgment for the money, of course?” 

“He wrote me some kind of receipt, or I O U. 
I don’t think it is what you call a ‘ formal ac- 
knowledgment,’ little wife. But from Sidney it 
is sufficient.” 

“You will keep it carefully, dear Robert?” 

“ Oh yes ; of course.” 

“ Because you know if Mr. Frost were to — to 
die!” 

Zillah's quick intelligence discovered that 


something was wrong with Sidney after he had 
undertaken her husband’s trust. He kept away 
from their house more than had been his wont. 
He was going to be married. He had obtained 
his long-coveted partnership. A suspicion of the 
truth darted into her mind. She endeavored to 
take him off his guard by adroit questions. But 
her woman’s cunning was no match for Sidney 
Frost. 

He confronted the matter boldly and with out- 
ward coolness, although he inwardly writhed with 
mortification to be abased before this woman 
who had been so humbly grateful at his feet. 
He told Zillah how he had applied her husband’s 
money. 

“It is not exactly the investment I had pro- 
posed, but it will be, in the end, a far better one 
than any other for you all. I have not mention- 
ed my change of plan to Robert. He is not well 
enough to be bothered about business. He is 
the best-hearted, dearest fellow in the world ; 
but you know that it is sometimes necessary to 
hoodwink him for his own good.” 

At the word the hot blood rushed to Zillah’s 
face, and her temples throbbed painfully. She 
understood perfectly the kind of bargain that 
was being made. She reflected that her first 
deception was now bearing its legitimate fruit. 

She was helpless. She carefully locked Mr. 
Frost’s informal receipt into her writing-desk, 
and submitted in silence. 

“When Robert gets better,” she said to her- 
self, “I will summon resolution to tell him ev- 
ery thing. I will!" 

But Robert never got better ; and within a few 
months he was laid in his grave. 


CHAP^’ER V. 

A MORNING CALL. 

j\Ir. Frost drove home to Bayswater after 
business hours, on the day on which Mrs. Lock- 
wood had visited him, veiy weary in body and 
sick at heart. 

Mrs. Frost had the most stylish of tiny 
broughams, drawn by a pawing steed, whose ac- 
tion gave one the idea that it had been taught 
to dance on hot iron, like a bear. 

Mr. Frost used a street cab when he drove at 
all. Very often he returned home on foot. On 
this special afternoon he Avas thoroughly tired. 
He had been into the City, into offices wherein 
his partner would have been much amazed to see 
him, and on business of which that partner had 
not the faintest suspicion. 

As the cab jingled and rattled along the busy 
streets toward Bayswater, Mr. Frost leaned his 
head back against the frouzy cushion and closed 
his eyes. But he could not deaden his hot brain. 
That was aliA’e, and feverishly active. He ground 
his teeth when he thought of Zillah Lockwood. 
And yet he pitied her. 

“If I could coin my blood into guineas she 
should have her owm,” said he, mentally. 

But if Mr. Frost could have coined his blood 
into guineas — in one sense he did coin flesh, and 
blood, and health, and life into lucre — it is prob- 
able that still Mrs. Lockwood would not have 
had her own ; for Mrs. Frost had an insatiable 
appetite for guineas, and would have received 


52 


VERONICA. 


any amount of them Avith tlie greedy immobility 
of a gaping-mouthed Indian idol. 

She was an idol that had cost her husband 
dear, and yet he still worshiped her — Avorshiped 
her and did not respect her ! Like the poor sav- 
age of the south, Avho alternately rails at, and 
grovels before, his taAvdry Madonna. 

Georgina Frost was a magnificently beautiful 
Avoman. Her face and figure were noble and 
majestic. She was graceful, eloquent, dignified. 

“ Mrs. Frost looks CA’ery inch a duchess,” some 
one said, admiringly. But Mrs. Frost had once 
stood for ten minutes side by side Avith a real 
duchess at a picture shoAV, and after that she told 
her husband, Avith a superb, languid smile, that 
she should decline to be likened to a duchess any 
more. 

“ A little, skinny, painted, flaxen-haired creat- 
ure in a short gOAvn, and Avith the most atrocious 
bonnet that ever was perched on a human head,” 
said Mrs. Frost, disdainfully. ‘ ‘ I am not at all 
like a duchess, if she is a fair specimen of the 
genus!” 

But nevertheless Mrs. Frost Avas pleased to be 
likened to a duchess. 

Mr. Frost did not reach his home until a feAV 
minutes before seven. Seven o’clock Avas his 
dinner hour. 

“Dinner ready?” he asked of the man Avho 
opened the door to him. 

“Whenever you please. Sir. Shall I tell the 
cook to send it up at once ?” 

‘ ‘ Where is your mistress ?” 

“My mistress is dressing, Sir.- She had an 
early dinner at three o’clock.” 

Mr. Frost Avalked into the dining-room, bid- 
ding the man send up his dinner directly. He 
threAv himself into a chair, and sat still, Avith a 
gloomy face. The complex lines in his forehead 
AA'ere tAvisted and knottea tightly together. 

He had got half-Avay through his solitary re- 
past, eating little, but drinking a good deal, in a 
feverish AA^ay, Avhen the door opened, and his 
wife came into the room. 

She Avas in full evening costume. A rich silk 
dress, of the broAvnish-golden hue of ripe Avheat, 
enhanced the clear paleness of her skin. The 
dress Avas simple and ample, as became the ma- 
jestic figure of its wearer. Its only ornament 
was a trimming of Avhite lace round the sleeves 
and bosom ; but this lace Avas antique, and of 
the costliest. In her dark wavy hair she had 
placed a branch of crimson pomegranate floAv- 
ers, and on one marble-Avhite arm she Avore a 
broad thick band of gold Avith a magnificent 
opal set in the midst of it. 

“Ah, you are there, Sidney!” she said, not 
looking at him though, but Avalking straight to- 
Avard a large mirror over the mantle-piece. She 
stood there, Avith her back to her husband, con- 
templating her own image very calmly. 

He raised his eyes and stealthily looked at her 
in the glass. 

“Where are you going ?*^ he asked, surlily. 
“You told me nothing about^oing out this eA^en- 

“Oh yes, I did; but I might as Avell have 
omitted it. You never remember. I am going 
to the opera. Patti sings the ‘ Sonnambula,’ 
and the MaxAvells made me promise not to fail 
them.” 

Mr. Frost sat looking at his beautiful Avife 


Avith a strange expression of mingled discon- 
tent and admiration. 

Suddenly his face changed. “Turn round,” 
he said, sharply. She obeyed leisurely. 

“Let me look. Is it possible? Yes; you 
have — you have — taken that bracelet, despite all 
I said to you !” 

“I told you Avhen the man shoAved it to me 
that I must haA'e it. It is the finest single opal 
I ever saAv.” 

Mr. Frost dashed his hand down on the table 
Avith an oath. “ By Heaven, it is too bad !” he 
cried. “ It is incredible ! Georgina, I wonder, 
upon my soul I do, that you can haA'e the heart 
to go on in this Avay !” 

Mrs. Frost looked doAvn at him Avith a sIoav 
Juno-like turn of the throat. 

“ Don’t be silly, Sidney. What is the use of 
your getting into passions? Nothing Avould go 
either Avith this dress or my black velvet but 
opals. And this matches the ear-rings so Avell.” 

‘ ‘ And hoAv, pray, do you imagine I am to pay 
for this jeAvel ?” 

Mrs. Frost shrugged her shoulders. 

“ Hoav should I know ? Hoav you are to pay 
for it is yoMr business, not mine! When you 
married me I suppose you were aAvare of the 
responsibilities you Avere undertaking! Oh, is 
the carriage there? Tell him to drive first to 
Lady MaxAvell’s, EdAvard. And — ask my maid 
for the ermine cloak to put into the carriage in 
case I should want it coming home. ” 

He walked angrily up and doAvn the room aft- 
er she Avas gone ; breaking out noAv and again 
into half-uttered sentences and ejaculations. 

“I Avill not stand it; I will not. Heavens 
and eai'th ! To think of her coolly taking that 
opal, Avhose felloAv it Avould be difficult to find in 
London, as though it Avere a glass bead! She 
cares no more for me than for the stone paA^e- 
ment she sets her dainty foot on ! I am a money- 
machine. That’s all ! But it shall come to an 
end. I can not live so. I will not. Why 
should I grind my very soul out for a Avoman 
Avith no vestige of heart or feeling? I’ll send 
her to live in the country. I’ll sell her wardrobe 
by auction. Millions wouldn’t suffice for her ex- 
travagance. I have told her that I don’t knoAv 
Avhich Avay to turn for money — and people think ' 
me a rich man ! Well they may Avhen they see 
my wife decked out in finery Avorth a king’s ran- 
som. Good HeaA^ens, that opal! To-morroAv 
I Avill make the jeAveler take it back. She shall 
not keep it. It is too monstrous. ” 

The next day Mrs. Frost, Avho occasionally 
made small concessions that cost her nothing, 
when it became apparent that she had roused 
her husband’s indignation too far, offered to 
drive aa ith him to Bedford Square and call on 
Mrs. Lovegrove. 

As they droA’e along eastward — Mrs. Frost 
looking very lovely in a morning toilet, for the 
perfection of Avhose freshness and simplicity she 
had paid more to a fashionable milliner than 
Mrs. LovegroA'e had eA'er expended on her finest 
gOAvn — Mr. Frost lectured his Avife as to the ne- 
cessity of comporting herself Avith ciAulity tOAA^ard 
the Lovegroves. 

“ I’m sure I don’t know hoAV to conciliate iMi-s. 
Lovegrove,” said the fair Georgina. “ Unless, 
perhaps, by rigging myself out from top to toe in 
Tottenham Court Road, and arriving at her door 


VERONICA. 


53 


in the dirtiest hackney cab to be found ! I real- 
ly would have borrowed Davis’s bonnet and shawl 
to come in, if I had thought of it : only, to be 
sure, Davis is always three months nearer the 
fashion than the Lovegrove women !” 

Davis was Mrs. Frost’s cook. 

INIr. Frost went into his office, saying that he 
would open his letters and go up to pay his re- 
spects to Mrs. Lovegrove by-and-by. His wife 
was ushered into the drawing-room, and waited 
while her card was carried to the mistress of the 
house. 

Mrs. Lovegrove’s drawing-room was hot. The 
sun shone full in through the windows, and there 
was a large fire in the grate. There was a stuffy 
fragrance in the room from two enormous jars 
of pot-pourri which stood one on each side of a 
gilt cabinet. On the cabinet were ranged what 
Mrs. Lovegrove called her nick-nacks : namely, 
a huge dish of wax fruit under a glass cover ; 
some Dresden figures; a Chinese puzzle; a Swiss 
chalet in card-board ; two or three cups of egg- 
shell poi'celain ; a statuette in the so-called Pa- 
rian ware, representing a Spanish lady clothed 
entirely in lace flounces, and with a foot about 
the same length as her nose ; and a blue satin 
box worked with white beads. 

The furniture was drab, with red satin stripes 
in it. The curtains were the same. The carpet 
was also drab, with splotchy cabbage-roses strewn 
over it. On the mantle-piece stood a French 
clock, flanked on either side by a cut-glass lustre 
whose pendent prisms jingled and shook when- 
ever a foot crossed the floor. There was a grand 
piano in the room, dark and shining. There 
was also a harp, muffled up in brown holland. 
On the round centre-table, covered by a red vel- 
vet cloth, were disposed with geometrical accu- 
racy several books. The middle of the table was 
occupied by a silver card-basket full of visiting- 
cards, on the top of which was conspicuously dis- 
played a large ticket, setting forth that General 
Sir Thomas Dobbs and Lady Dobbs requested 
the honor of Mrs. and the Misses Lovegrove’s com- 
pany at a ball, bearing date two months back. 

Mrs. Frost waited. The house was very still. 
She peeped into one book after the other. Two 
were photograph albums. A third was a little 
volume of poetry containing verses in celebration 
of the month of May, which the Puseyite writer 
looked on exclusively from an ecclesiastical point 
of view, and styled the “Month of Mary. ” There 
was likewise a Peerage, bound in red and gold. 

Mrs. Frost waited. She had ensconced her- 
self in a comfortable corner of the couch. It 
was hot, and the end of it was that Mrs. Frost 
fell into a doze, and woke with a sensation of 
being looked at. 

Mrs. Lovegrove stood opposite to her. 

Mrs. Lovegrove had a pale, smooth face, with 
a pale, smooth, and very high forehead. Her 
features were not uncomely. Her eyes must 
have been pretty in youth ; well-shaped, and of a 
soft dove-gray. Her teeth were still sound and 
white. They projected a little, and her upper 
lip was too long for beaut 3 ^ It gave one the 
idea, when her mouth was closed, of being 
stretched too tightly, in the effort to cover the 
long, prominent teeth. 

Mrs. Lovegrove was lean and flat - chested. 
She wore a lead-colored merino gown, and a 
small cap with lead-colored satin ribbons. She 


affected drabs, and browns, and leaden or iron 
grays in her own attire. She said they were 
“ so chaste.” 

“How do you do, Mrs. Frost? I am so 
shocked to have kept jmu waiting. Your visits 
are such unexpected and rare favors that if I 
could have come instantly I would.” 

Mrs. Lovegrove spoke in a very low voice, and . 
with pedantic distinctness. 

“I almost fell asleep, I think,” said Mrs. Frost, 
with much nonchalance. 

“You were — excuse me — snoring,” replied 
Mrs. Lovegrove, in her gentlest and most dis- 
tinct accents. 

Mrs. Frost did not at all like to be told that 
she had been snoring. But as this is an, accu- 
sation against which we are all helpless, seeing 
that in the nature of things we can not be con- 
scious whether we have snored or not, she did 
not attempt to rebut it. 

“Don’t you think you keep your room rath- 
er — stuffy?” she said, wrinkling up her hand- 
some nose. 

“Stuffy? If I apprehend your meaning, I 
think not. You see, you live in one of those 
new lath-and-plaster houses that really are bare- 
ly weather-proof. No doubt you find some com- 
pensating advantage in doing so. But I confess 
that for mj'self I prefer a solid, well-built, old- 
fashioned mansion. How is Mr. Frost?” 

“ Quite well, I believe. He said he was com- 
ing to wait upon you by-and-b 3 ^ ” 

“/s he quite well? Now is he? I am re- 
joiced to hear it. Mr. Lovegrove has been 
thinking him looking rather fagged of late. 
We live in high-pressure times. The friction 
on a railway, for instance, is so much more 
tremendous than the friction on an old mail- 
coach road. And yet it may be doubted — Is 
any thing the matter?” 

“No : I — 1 — only want to sneeze. How A'eiy 
pungent the stuff' in those jars is ! You don’t 
put snuff in it, do \’ou ?” 

“Snuff! My dear Mrs. Frost — !” 

“I feel as though I had some grains of snuff 
up my nose.” 

“ My pot-pourri is prepared after a recipe that 
was always used down at our family place.” 

“Ah !’’ said Mrs. Frost, languidl}'. “I dare 
say it is A'ery nice when one gets a little — sea- 
soned to it.” 

Then Mrs. Lovegrove led the conversation 
into her own ground. She discoursed of ritual- 
ism, of stoles, tapers, and censers. After these 
subjects came the British aristocracy, collective- 
ly and individually. Thence, she slid easily to 
the immense number of invitations her girls had 
received this season. Finally, reserving her bonne 
bouche to the last, she spoke of their dear jmung 
friend. Miss Desmond, Lady Tallis-Gale’s niece, 
and herself connected with some of our most an- 
cient families. 

“I am no leveler,” said Mrs. Lovegrove, in a 
kind of self-denying way (as who should say, 
“ If I did but choose it, I could lay existing in- 
stitutions as flat as a bowling-green!”). “No. 

I approve and reverence the distinctions of rank 
and birth. You may tell me that these are in- 
born prejudices — ” 

“Not at all,” drawled Mrs. Frost, checking, 
but not concealing, a yawn. 

“ Well, I will not deny that there may be some 


54 


VERONICA. 


tinge of early prejudice. But when we lived at 
our family place papa always impressed on us 
to pay the same respect to those few persons 
who were above us in rank as we exacted from 
our inferiors. Papa Avas a stanch Tory of the 
old school. But he had no arrogant pride of 
birth. He used to say — Ah, here is Mr. Frost. 
How do you do, ^Mr. Frost? We Avere speak- 
ing — or, at least, I AV’as speaking, for I do not 
think your Avife knoAvs her — of our dear Miss 
Desmond. You can not think how the girls 
haA'e taken to her. She is not here half as 
much as Ave could Avish, though. For her at- 
tendance on Lady Tallis is most unremitting. 
But Ave feel toward her as a daughter. As to 
my son Augustus — ! Well, do you know, I 
scarcely know how to describe the impression 
the SAveet girl has made on Augustus !” 

Mr. Frost smiled A’ery graciously, and seemed 
much interested. 

“We are going to haA'e — I Avon’t call it a par- 
ty — a little social gathering, to Avhich Ave liaA^e 
persuaded Miss Desmond to come, on the Feast 
of Saint WereAvulf — that is,” added Mrs. LoA^e- 
groA^e, Avith a melancholy smile, “next Saturday. 
I dare say you are not familiar Avith the saints’ 
days ?” 

“I don’t knoAV any thing about Saint Were- 
Avulf,” said Mrs. Frost. 

“We shall have music, and endeaA’or to be 
innocently gay; none the less gay for having 
attended a matin serAUce in honor of the saint. 
Our religion is not gloomy and mirth-forbid- 
cling. If you and Mrs. Frost Avould join us Ave 
should be unaffectedly glad.” 

Mrs. Frost had opened her mouth to decline 
the invitation, but her husband interposed. 

“You are extremely good, Mrs. LoA'egroA'e,” 
he said. “We Avill come Avith pleasure.” 

“Why in the Avorld did you say yes to that 
oppressive AV’oman’s invitation, Sidney?” asked 
his Avife, as he AV'as handing her into the car- 
riage. “/ sha’n’t go. She really is too much. 
If you had heard the stuff she was talking about 
her family place! And she deA'Oured me with 
her fishy eyes. If I had not had the conscious- 
ness of being thoroughly Avell dressed she would 
have given me a nervous fever.” 

“Well, that consciousness must support you 
on Saturday next. For Ave must go. And — 
listen, Georgy — make yourself pleasant to Miss 
Desmond. ” 


CHAPTER VI. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

Three letters from abroad had come to the 
vicarage. Mr. Levincourt burned them all, and 
said no Avord of them to any one. 

One evening, Avhen Mr. Plew returned from a 
round of professional visits, his mother put into 
his hand a large letter coA^ered Avith foreign post- 
marks. 

“ Of course, Nathaniel,” said the poor old avo- 
man, tremblingly Avatching his face, “I guess 
Avho it’s from. But you would have nothing to 
say to her now, my deary, Avould you ?” 

“Mother!” gasped the little surgeon, clutch- 
ing at the letter. 

“There, there, Nathaniel, don’t be angry Avith 
me, love. I have never said a Avry Avord about 


the girl at home nor abroad ; nor I don’t Avant 
to. But — of course I knoAv you are a grown 
man” (Mr. PleAV was three-and-forty), “ and can 
act for yourself ; but you know, Nathaniel, love, 
I’m the mother that bore you, and in some Avays 
you'll alAvays be a child to me — ay, if you Avere a 
hundred ! And it goes to my heart to see you 
badly treated by them that ain’t Avorthy to — 
There, my deary, I’ve done.” 

Mr. Plew shut himself up in his little bedroom, 
and opened his letter. 

His face, eager, anxious, all agloAv Avith excite- 
ment, fell, and the light faded out of it. The 
bulky packet contained a sealed letter addressed 
to “Miss Maud Desmond.” Within the outer 
envelope Avere Avritten these Avoids : 

“I rely on you to convey the inclosed into 
Maud’s hands. I think you Avill not fail me. 

“V.” 

Mr. PleAV opened his shabby little ‘AA’riting- 
desk, took out a sheet of paper, Avrapped the 
letter in it, sealed it, and directed it to Miss 
Desmond, No. 367 GoAver Street, London. 

Then he pressed the outer enA'elope to his lips, 
flushing a hot, painful crimson as he did so, and, 
finally, he sat doAvn beside the bed, hid his face 
on the pilloAV, and cried. 

The next day Maud received her letter. It 
ran as folloAvs : 

“I Avill begin Avith a Avarning. I Avarn you 
not to Avaste compassion and Availings and lam- 
entations upon me. I desire, and need, no pity. 
I have chosen my fate, and the day may come, 
icill come, Avhen you Avill all acknoAvledge that I 
have chosen Avisely. I have Avritten to you once 
before, and tAvice to papa. Having received no 
ansAA'er, the idea occurred to me that papa had 
suppressed mine to you. I knoAV the kind of 
tAA'addle — contamination, evil communications — 
must hold no parley Avith — I Avill not Avrite the 
trash. It can not apply to me. Believe that. 

“ It may be, on the other hand, that you have 
received my letter, and have chosen to make no 
sign. If it be so, so be it. But I give you this 
chance, by directing the present letter to the 
care of Mr. Pleiv. I believe him to be a faith- 
ful creature, and I hope that Sir John and my- 
self may one day have it in our poAver to shoAv 
him that avc think so.” 

The AA'ords “Sir John and myself” made 
Maud recoil, Avhen she read them, as though 
she had received a physical bloAv. The letter 
proceeded : 

“You Avill, of course, be taught to think all 
evil of me. I know the paltry, envious malice 
of a place like Shipley. Hoav I loathe the name 
of it! And it is, no doubt, true that I caused 
papa some temporary anxiety. I trust it Avas 
brief, I left the letter on my toilet-table, and I 
conjectured that it could not long remain unseen. 
The letter, Avben once read, ought to have reas- 
sured him. Sir John gave me Aveighty reasons 
for not Avishing to make our marriage public at 
once. I Avas bound to respect his secret. From 
the fact of papa having j)reserved an obstinate 
silence I am led to guess that he is nourishing 
resentment against me. I shall be sorry if this 
be so, but can stoop to no more entreaties, 

“The knoAvledge of the position I shall one 
day hold in the eyes of all the Avorld sustains me 
against the idea of passing misconstruction. 

“Sir John is all kindness and consideration to 


VERONICA. 


me. I am surrounded by all the elegant luxu- 
ries that wealth can purchase or watchful aU’ec- 
tioii suggest. I am traveling through exquisite 
scenery, and drawing near to my mother’s native 
sunny land. I hate aftectation of sentimentali- 
ty, but, in truth, my heart beats bister as I look 
at the snowy peaks, and think ‘beyond there 
lies Italy !’ Direct to me, Poste Restante, Arona, 
Lago Maggiore. AVithin a fortnight we shall be 
there. Your letter must be addressed to Ladii 
Gale. 

“Your affectionate (if you will let it be so) 

“ Veronica. 

“.Maudie, Maudie, tell me how papa is, how 
you are. Love me, Maudie. V.” 

. The last few words were apparently added hur- 
riedly. They were blurred and almost illegible. 
But Maud dwelt on them rather than on the rest 
of the letter. They showed that Veronica’s heart 
was not dead, although her haughty spirit dis- 
dained sympathy or compassion. 

Twice, three, four times did Maud read the let- 
ter through her blinding tears before she laid it 
down on her lap, and fairly thought over its con- 
tents. 

One conviction stood out clear in her mind — 
either Veronica was deceived or deceiving. 

That she could have no right to the title of 
“Lady Gale” they in England knew but too 
well. But was it equally certain that Veronica 
kneiv it ? Was it not much more probable that 
Sir John was continuing to deceive her ? JNIight 
he not even have gone through a false ceremony 
of marriage ? Such things had been ! 

iVIaud pondered and pondered. Suddenly she 
took a resolution. Come what might, she would 
answer Veronica’s letter. It could not be right 
to leave her in ignorance of the real facts of the 
case. She ivould write to Veronica, and would 
then inclose Veronica’s letter to ]\Ir. Levincourt, 
and tell him what she had done. lie might be 
angry at first, but in his heart he would thank 
her. He could not really desire to abandon his 
only child to shame and misery. If Veronica 
could only know the truth, she would leave that 
wicked man. She must ! 

jMaud peeped into the drawing-room before 
sitting down to her little desk in her own room. 

Lady Tallis was asleep on the sofa. She al- 
ways slept regularly after her early dinner, and 
with equal regularity was always very much sur- 
jirised when she awoke to find that she had 
“dropped off,” as she phrased it. 

Without allowing herself time to hesitate, 
Maud wrote a letter, earnestly and affectionately 
conjuring the unfortunate girl to return to them, 
telling her, with simple directness, that Sir John 
Tallis Gale had a wife living, and who that wife 
was ; imploring her to disbelieve any specious 
tale he might tell her, and to wrench herself away 
from him at any cost. “ If you will only believe 
in the true love of your friends, dear Veronica,” 
she wrote, “and come back to us, you shall never 
repent it.” 

Who the friends were whose love Veronica 
was conjured to believe in was not so clear. 
Maud secretly feared that Mr. Levincourt would 
be obdurate for a time. But he could not hard- 
en his heart against a repentant child forever, 
d'hen she thought of the Sheardowns, and be- 
lieved that they would be kind and charitable. 


55 

They might assist Mr. Levincourt to leave Ship- 
ley, and to go elsewhere — to some place in which 
his daughter’s story was not known. Fifty plans 
passed through Maud’s brain, as her pen ran 
swiftly, eagerly over the paper. She wrote with 
all the eloquence she could. 

Would Veronica be willing to return even 
when she knew the truth? Did she assuredly 
not know it already ? On these questions Maud 
would not dwell, although they kept presenting 
themselves importunately tO' her mind. Her 
one plain, obvious duty was to tell Veronica the 
truth. How might not the lost girl one day re- 
proach them all if they left her in ignorance — if 
they did not stretch out a hand to rescue and re- 
claim her ! 

“I do love you, Veronica,” she wrote at the 
end of her letter. “ And so does Uncle Charles. 
You would not think him hard if you had seen 
liim as I saw him on that dreadful day when we 
Iq^t you. Oh, come back, come buck to us! 
If youyant means, or help, or protection, you 
shall have them, I swear that you shall ! Write 
to me here. I am with my Aunt Hilda. She 
knows nothing of this letter, nor of yours to me. 
Do not let false shame or false i)ride keep you 
apart from us. Be strong. Oh, look forward a 
little, dearest Veronica! Is not any thing bet- 
ter than — But I know your heart is good ; 
you will not let your father die vrithout the con- 
solation of knowing that you are safe, and that 
you have given up that wicked tempter so soou 
as you knew his real character. There is no 
disgrace in being deceived, and I know, I am 
sure, he has deceived you. Write to me, Ve- 
ronica, soon, soon!” 

The letter was sealed, directed (not without a 
pang of conscience at the written lie) to “Lady 
Gale,” and dispatched to the post-office, at the 
same time with a few lines to Mr. Levincourt, 
inclosing Veronica’s letter, begging him to read 
it, and telling him what she (Maud) had 
done. 

To this latter epistle came an answer within a 
few days. 

“I can not be angry with you, my sweet 
child,” wrote the vicar, “but I am grieved that 
you should” have followed this impulse without 
consulting me. It is my duty, Maud, to guard 
you from contact with such as that wretched 
girl has made herself. The hardened audacity 
of her letter astounds me.- " /If such things could 
be, I should believe that that fiend had cast a 
spell upon her. May God Almighty forgive 
her ! 1 struggle with myself, but I am a broken 

man. I can not hold up my head here. Blessed 
are the peace-makers, Maudie. You plead for 
her with sweet charity. But she has not injured 
you — she has injured no one as she has injured 
me. Still, I -will not shut my mind against any 
ray of hope. It may be, as you say, that she 
has been deceived. If this be so, and she re- 
turns humbled and repentant — repentant for all 
the evil her treachery and deceit have heaped 
on me, we must crawl into some obscure corner 
an<f hide our shame together. At the best, she 
is branded and disgraced for life. But, my pure- 
hearted Maud, I warn you not to be sanguine. 
Do not make sure that she will abandon her 
wicked luxuries, and pomps, and wealth, to live 
in decent, dull poverty with me. I can send no 
message to your aunt. Aly name must be loath - 


56 


VERONICA. 


some in her ears. It were better for her and 
you to forget us altogether. ” 

The tone of this letter was softer than Maud 
had dared to hope. Here, at least, he showed 
no stubborn wrath. It now remained to see 
what answer her letter to Arona would bring 
forth. 

She waited eagerly, anxiously, fearfully, de- 
spondingly ; but no answer ever came. 

Her poor letter had been forwarded from 
Arona to Milan in accordance with the written 
instructions of Sir John Gale (he having changed 
his plans, and gone on to Milan sooner than had 
been arranged), had been opened by him, read 
by him, and burned by him in the flame of a 
taper in his bedroom, until it was browner and 
more shriveled than an autumn leaf. 


CHAPTER VII. 

A FEW FRIENDS. % 

Before the receipt of the letter from Italy 
Maud had promised to go to Mrs. Lovegrove’s 
party. 

She wished, after she had got the letter, to 
withdraw her promise. She was anxious, agi- 
tated, ill at ease. She dreaded meeting stran- 
gers. And al^iough the women of Mr. Love- 
grove’s family had been kind and civil to her, 
they were not people whose society was at all 
congenial to her. 

She had hitherto had no experience of town 
vulgarity. The poor peasants at Shipley were 
rough and ignorant. But that was different 
from the Cockney gentility which some of the 
Lovegroves assumed. The young man, Augus- 
tus, was jieculiarly distasteful to her, from an in- 
stinctive knowledge she had that he admired 
herself, and would upon the slightest encourage- 
ment, or, she much feared, without any encour- 
agement at all, avow as much in plain terms. 
She had yielded to her aunt’s urgings, and had 
consented to go to Mrs. Lovegrove’s party, how- 
ever. But now she much desired to avoid doing 
so. 

“My darling pet!” cried Lady Tallis, when 
Maud hinted this to her. “Now how can ye 
think of disappointing the poor woman ? ’Twould 
be unkind, dear. And I have had that poplin 
turned, it looks beautiful by candle-light — but 
sure I wouldn’t think of going without you, 
Maud dear.” 

‘ ‘ Oh yes. Aunt Hilda ! Why not ?” 

“Not at all, child. I wouldn’t dream of it. 
If you are not feeling well, or any thing, we’ll 
just stay at home the two of us. And I’ll send 
a little note to Dr. Talbot.” 

‘ ‘ Dear aunt, I am quite well. I do not need 
any doctors.” 

“Then why in the world, now, wouldn’t ye go 
to Mrs. Lovegrove’s ? I don’t like to see you 
moping, a young creature like you. You want 
rousing a bit. And if you stick at home like an 
old woman I shall be quite unhappy.” ^ 

After this Maud could no longer resist. She 
could not make her aunt understand that the 
party at Mrs. Lovegrove’s could not by any pos- 
sibility conduce to the raising of her spirits. 
“But if I am not feeling gay myself,” thought 
Maud, ‘ ‘ I will not be so selfish as to cast a damp 


on poor Aunt Hilda when she is inclined to be 
cheerful. It would be cruel to stand in the way 
of any of her few enjoyments.” 

So* the turned poplin was put on; and Lady 
Tallis yielded with some reluctance to the mod- 
est suggestion of Mrs. Lockwood, who was invit- 
ed to superintend her ladyship’s toilet, that a 
bow of tartan ribbon at the throat scarcely har- 
monized with the pink ribbons in the cap. 

“ That soft rose-color goes admirably with the 
gray poplin. Lady Tallis,” said Zillah, quietly. 
“But, do you know, I am afraid the tartan bow 
will be a little — a little too conspicuous ?” 

“Do you think so?” said my lady, taking it 
off with much docility, but with evident disap- 
pointment. “ Well, to be sure, you have excel- 
lent taste. But when I was a girl I always used 
to be told that tartan went with any thing. I 
remember dancing in a Caledonian quadrille at 
Delaney once, the time poor James came of age, 
and we had — myself and three other girls — white 
silk dresses, trimmed with the Roj'^al Stuart tar- 
tan, and every body said they looked lovely.” 

It took some time to get Lady Tallis dressed ; 
for the ill fortune that attended her outer attire 
pursued all her garments. Buttons and strings 
dropped from her clothing like ripe apples from 
the tree. She would have riddled her clothes 
with pins had not Mrs. Lockwood, neat and dex- 
trous, stood by with a needle and thread ready 
to repair any damage. 

‘ ‘ I think a few stitches are better than pins, ” 
observed Zillah. “Don’t you, my lady?” 

“ Oh, indeed I do ! Much better. But, my 
dear soul, I am shocked to give ye this trouble. 
When I think that I had, and ought to have at 
this moment, attendants of my own to wait on 
me properly, and that 1 am now obliged to tres- 
pass on the kindness of my friends, I assure you 
I am ready to shed tears. But I won’t give way, 
and spoil my dear Maud’s pleasure. Don't ye 
think I am right in making her go out and en- 
joy herself?” 

Despite the truth of Maud’s assertions that she 
was ill at ease in spirit, and disinclined to go into 
the society of strangers, her curiosity and at- 
tention were aroused by the novelty of all she 
saw and he^rd at Mrs. Lovegrove’s. 

This was not like a Shipley tea-drinking with 
old Mrs. Blew, or a dinner-party at Mrs. Shear- 
down’s or Lady Alicia Renwick’s. 

She desired and wished to sit still and unno- 
ticed in a corner, and watch the company. But 
to her dismay, she found it to be JMrs. Love- 
grove’s intention to draw her into notice. 

That lady, clad in a stiff metallic gray silk 
gown, drew Maud’s arm through her own, and 
walked with her about the drawing-room, into 
the small room behind it, and even into the third 
room, a tiny closet above Mr. Frost’s private of- 
fice, where three old gentlemen and one old lady 
were playing whist at a green table, and glared 
at the intruders fiercely. 

‘ ‘ I wish to make you known to the Dobbses, 
dearest Miss Desmond,” said Mrs. Lovegrove. 
“Those are the Misses Dobbs in apple-green. 
I am so grieved that the General and Lady Dobbs 
can not be here to-night. They are charming 
people. I know you would be delighted with 
them ! ” 

Maud felt inwardly thankful that the charm- 
ing Dobbses were not present. She had no de- 


VERONICA. 


57 


sire to form new acquaintances, and after a time 
she complained of feeling rather tired, and asked 
to be allowed to go and sit beside her aunt. 

But Ayhen she reached Lady Tallis she. found 
ilr. Augustus Lovegrove, J unior, seated close to 
her ladyship, and talking to her with much vi- 
vacity. 

jVIr. Augustus Lovegrove was very tall, and 
was awkward in his gait ; and carried his head 
hanging backward, so that when he wore a hat 
the hinder part of the brim rested on the collar 
of his coat ; and sometimes sang comic songs to 
his own accompaniment on the piano-forte ; and 
his friends considered him little inferior to Mr. 
John Parry. They allowed, indeed, that he had 
not “quite Parry’s touch on the piano. But 
that was only a knack, you know.” His mother 
called him an excellent son, and the Puseyite 
clergyman of the church he attended pronounced 
him a model to all young men. His little bed- 
room at the top of the house was stuck over with 
paltry colored lithographs of saints and illumin- 
ated texts in Latin. It was rumored among 
his sisters that he possessed a rosary which had 
been blessed by the Pope. He was being brought 
up to his father’s calling, and Mr. Lovegrove, 
who knew what he was talking about, pronounced 
that Gussy had a very fair head for business ; 
and that he understood that two and two make 
four quite as well as most people. 

“Here she is!” exclaimed Mr. Augustus, as 
Maud approached. “We were just talking 
about you. Miss Desmond — my lady and 1.” 

The intimation was not altogether pleasing to 
Maud. She bowed with Tather stiff politeness 
and sat down next to her aunt. 

“I was just saying to my lady,” proceeded 
the gallant Augustus, “that their painted hair 
has no chance beside yours. They can’t get the 
shine, you know.” Arid he slightly nodded his 
head in the direction of the Misses Dobbs’s ap- 
])le-green skirts, which were disappearing into 
the second drawing-room. 

Maud felt disgusted, and made no reply. 

Lady Tallis, however, raised her eyebrows 
and inquired with much interest, ‘ ‘ Do you, now 
do vou think that those voung ladies dye their 
hair?” 

“Not the least doubt of it, ma’am. I’ve 
known Polly Dobbs ever since I was a small 
boy. And when she was fifteen her hair was as 
brown as a berry. They both came back from 
the Continent last year with orange - colored 
locks. Their mother says it’s climate that did 
it. It’s the kind of ‘ climate’ they sell in the 
Ihirlington Arcade at seven-and-six per bottle ! ” 

“Really! You don’t say so?” cried Lady 
Tallis, not more than half understanding him. 
“ Well, I know that you can get the waters — 
almost any foreign spa-waters — in stone bottles, 
imported. But of course when you talk of cli- 
mate in bottles you’re joking.” 

At this moment, greatly to Maud’s relief, for 
she began to find young Lovegrove intolerable, 
a duet for harp and piano was commenced ; and 
there was enforced silence among the company. 

The players were Miss Lovegrove and Miss 
Lucy Lovegrove. Miss Phoebe Lovegrove turned 
over the music for her sister at the harp ; and 
Miss Dora Lovegrove did the same thing for the 
pianist. The piece was very long and not par- 
ticularly well executed. But Maud wa.s sorry 


when it came to a close, for while it continued 
she could remain quiet and look about her un- 
molested. 

Her eyes were attracted in spite of herself to a 
magnificently beautiful woman sitting in a non- 
chalantly graceful posture on a sofa on the op- 
posite side of the room. She looked so differ- 
ent from all the other persons present, and seem- 
ed to regard them with such calm contempt, 
that JMaud found herself wondering who she 
could be ; how she came there ; and above all, 
why, having come, she should be uncivil enough 
to allow her face to express boredom so undis- 
guisedly. 

No sooner had the duet come to a close than 
this beautiful lady rose, took the arm of a gen- 
tleman, and came across the drawing-room to 
where Lady Tallis and Maud were sitting. 

The lady and gentleman were IMrs. and Mr. 
Frost. The latter bowed profoundly to Lady 
Tallis, and begged permission to present his wife 
to her. 

“Most happy! — delighted!” said Lady Tal- 
lis, holding out her hand. She had seen Mr. 
Frost in Gower Street veiy often. 

There was no difficulty in making my lady’s 
acquaintance. She began to chat directly with 
as much familiarity as though the Frosts had 
been known to her all her life. • 

Mrs. Frost appraised her ladyship’s attire with 
a glance, of whose meaning Lady Tallis was hap- 
pily unconscious. 

Mr. Frost furtively watched Maud, and at 
length, during one of the rare pauses in Lady 
Tallis’s flow of talk, said, hesitatingly, “Your 
niece, is it not ?” 

“Indeed and in truth she is my niece, Mr. 
Frost, and a great blessing and comfort it is to 
have her with me ! Maud, my darling, this is 
Mrs. Frost. Mr. Frost, Miss Desmond.” 

Mr. Frost sat down beside the young lady 
and began to talk to her. He perceived at once 
that she was very different in every respect from 
her aunt. It Avas quite impossible to jump into 
terms of familiarity with Maud Desmond. 

“You have been ill, I Avas sorry to learn,” 
said Mr. Frost. 

‘ ‘ I Avas a little ill : A^ery slightly. I am quite 
well noAv, thank you.” 

“Perhaps London does not altogether agi’ee 
Avith you. You have been used to a country 
life, have you not ?” 

‘ ‘ I have lived nearly alAA-ays in the country ; 
but I am very Avell in London noAv. ” 

“You are Ihring in the house of a A'ery old 
friend of mine, Mrs. LockAvood.” 

The change in Maud’s face from apathy to in- 
terest Avhen he uttered the name Avas not lost 
upon Mr. Frost. 

“You are an old friend of Mrs. LockAA'Ood’s ?” 
repeated jMaud, smiling. 

“A very old friend. I kneAv her husband 
before he Avas married. I haA^e knoAvn Hugh 
eA'er since he Avas born. He is a right good fel- 
low.” 

“Oh yes.” 

“ But his mother is a little disturbed about 
him at present. He has taken an obstinate fit 
into his head, and Avants to set up as an archi- 
tect on his OAvn account, instead of remaining 
longer in Digby and West’s offices. Perhaps 
you haA'e heard?” 


r>8 


VERONICA. 


“Yes; I heard something of it from ]\Irs. ! 
Lockwood ; and from my friends, Captain and 
Mrs. Sheardown.” I 

“Ah, exactly.’' I 

“Captain Sheardown seemed to think that' 
Mr. Lockwood was justified in his plan.” i 

“I have no doubt that Captain Sheardown is j 
an excellent gentleman.” | 

“He is very good and very sensible.” ! 

“No doubt. Still, on this point his opinion | 
is scarcely the most valuable that could be had. j 
I am going to Italy myself in a very short time — 
You are looking pale. Is the heat of the room 
too much for you ?” 

‘ ‘ No, thank you. Yes — I am rather oppress- 
ed by it. You were saying — ” 

“ That I am going to" Italy on business which, 
if carried out successfully, would enable me to 
throw an excellent thing in Hugh Lockwood’s 
way. It might keep him abroad for a year or 
two, but that would be no disadvantage ; on the 
contrary, if we can only persuade Hugh not to 
be in a hurry to assume responsibilities on his 
own account — ” 

“The carriage must be here by this time, Sid- 
ney,” said Mrs. Frost, rising and touching her 
husband s shoulder. “ Do inquire ! ” 

“Not going yet, surely!” exclaimed Mrs. 
Lov^rove, with stern distinctness. “iVof go- 
ing before partaking of our humble refresh- 
ments?” 

“Oh, thank you very much,” returned Mrs. 
Frost, “ but I really couldn't eat any thing. We 
rushed away from dinner in order to get here 
before it was all over. Your hours are so virtu- 
ously early !” 

It was perhaps strange that IVIrs. Lovegrove 
should feel offended at being told that she kept 
virtuously early hours. But the fact was that 
she did so feel. 

“I saw,” said the hostess, “that you had 
scraped acquaintance with my friend Lady Tal- 
lis Gale, I would have presented you to her, 
but the fact is, she does not particularly care for 
making acquaintance out of her own set.” 

“Oh, that talkative elderly lady in the turned 
gown ? Yes ; Sidney presented me to her. 
What an odd person !” 

“In her peculiar and painful position,” pur- 
sued Mrs. Lo^egrove, loftily, “JMr. Lovegrove 
does not feel justified in intruding strangers on 
her acquaintance.” 

“What’s the matter with her? Is she not 
quite right in her head?” asked Mrs. Frost, 
slightly touching her own forehead as she spoke. 

This was too much for Mrs, Lovegrove, She 
had felt that she was getting the worst of it 
throughout ; for she was piqued, and Mrs. Frost 
was genuinely cool and unconcerned. 

“I don’t understand you, Mrs. Frost,” said 
Mrs, Lovegrove, “nor can I conjecture why 
you should wish to — to — insult my friends.” 

“ Oh dear me, I assure you I hadn’t the least 
idea of insulting the poor woman, ’’rejoined Mrs, 
Frost, imperturbably. “It would be her mis- 
fortune, not her fault, you know, after all ! But 
you said something yourself about her peculiar 
and painful position.” 

Mrs. Lovegrove faced round solemnly. “I 
did so, Mrs. Frost,” she said. “And poor dear 
Lady Tallis’s position is indeed a sad one. Her 
husband — a man of enormous wealth, but of so 


profligate a character that I shudder to breathe 
his name in the same atmosphere where my 
daughters are — her husband,” continued Mrs. 
Lovegrove, reaching a climax of impressiveness, 
and low^ering her voice almost to a whisper, 
“/irts gone off and deserted her V' 

“Really? Very shocking! But,” added 
Mrs. Frost, “do you know, I think not, on the 
whole, very surprising !'’ 

That night, in the seclusion of their chamber, 
Mrs. Lovegrove informed her husband that, 
come what might, she would never, on any con- 
sideration, invite “that woman” — so she desig- 
nated Mrs. Frost — inside her doors again. 

“Pooh, Sarah!” said JMr. Lovegrove, “why 
not?” 

“Why not, Augustus? I wonder that you 
can ask! Her insolence and airs are beyond 
bearing. And did you see her gown ?” 

“A black gown, wasn’t it? It looked very 
neat, I thought.” 

“Very neat! If three guineas a yard paid 
for that lace it was trimmed with I will under- 
take to eat it. That is all, Augustus ! ” 

But yet that proved to be not quite all. And 
Mr. Lovegrove had to listen to a long cata- 
logue of Mrs. Frost’s misdemeanors until he fell 
asleep. 

Mrs. Frost, on her side, declared that she had 
been bored to death; that she had never seen 
any thing like the collection of creatures Mrs. 
Lovegrove had gathered together ; that they had 
stared at her (JMrs. Frost) as though she were a 
savage ; and, finally, she asked her husband what 
good had been done by her going there at all, 
seeing that that absurd Avoman, Mrs. Lovegrove, 
had chosen to take ofiense, and Avalk away from 
her in a huff! 

“No good at all, Georgina, certainly, unless 
you had chosen to behave with civilit\’, when you 
knew hoAV I had begged you to do so.” 

“Really, I was perfectly civil. But Mrs. 
Lovegrove tried to quarrel with me because I 
Avas not overAvhelmed by the honor and glory 
of being introduced to that ridiculous old Irish- 
Avoman.” 

“Lady Tallis’s niece is, at all events, a A'ery 
charming crealftire. ” 

“The golden-haired girl in Avhite? Well — 
y — yes, perhaps ; I did not speak to her. Cer- 
tainly she did look different from the rest of the 
menagerie. Those apple-green creatures ! Ugh ! 
They set one’s teeth on edge!” 

“You must call on Lady Tallis, Georgina. I 
Avant you to invite the girl, and take her into so- 
ciety a little. ” 

“ I ? Thanks I I really can not undertake 
to chaperon all your clients’ daughters and 
nieces and cousins, and Heaven knoAvs Avho be- 
sides. ” 

“ Lady Tallis Gale is no client of mine.” 

“Why do you trouble yourself about her, 
then ?” 

“ Georgy, listen : this is a case in Avhich your 
Avoman’s tact might help me, if you Avould em- 
ploy it on my behalf. There is some foolish love-* 
making going on between Hugh LockAvood and 
this Miss Desmond. The girl is different from 
Avhat I expected. She is very attractive. Noav, 
it is very undesirable that young LockAVoed 
should entangle himself in an engagement just 
noAv. ” 


VERONICA. 


50 


“Very undesirable for whom?” asked Mrs. 
Frost, yawning behind her fan. 

“For — for his mother.” 

“Really? Well, I should suppose that very 
trenchant little person with the prominent jaw 
was able to manage her own business. I am 
sorry I can not get up any vital interest in the 
case. But you know Mrs. Lockwood is not a 
dear old friend of mine!'' 

Mrs. Frost had for a brief time been really a 
little jealous of Zillah. And she still affected 
to be so whenever it suited her, although she felt 
tolerably certain that whatever were the strong 
tie of intimacy between her husband and Mrs. 
Lockwood, there was no echo in it of an old 
love-story. 

“Suppose I tell you, Georgina,” said Mr. 
Frost, suppressing the hot words of anger which 
rose to his lips, “that it would be undesirable 
for me that Hugh Lockwood should engage him- 
self at present. ” 

“ What in the world can it matter to you, Sid- 
ney ?” 

“There are business complications in the af- 
fair,” said Mr. Frost, slowly. “But so long as 
these young folks are living in the same house 
and meeting daily, and so long as the young 
lady is mewed up there without any other so- 
ciety, it is in the course of nature that she should 
be disposed to fancy herself in love with Hugh. 
As to him, I am not surprised. The girl is full 
of sense and sweetness, and is a thorough gentle- 
woman. But Hugh ought to marry some one 
with a few thousands of her own. Miss Des- 
mond is very poor. Now, if you would give her 
some pleasant society, and let her see something 
of the world, there would be less fear of Hugh 
and her making fools of themselves.” 

‘ ‘ Why don’t you tell all that to Lady What’s- 
her-name?” asked Mrs. Frost, leaning back in 
the carriage with closed eyes. “ She is the prop- 
er person to look after her niece.” 

“ I tell it to you because I choose that you 
shall obey me!” thundered Mr. Frost, furiously. 
“It is not enough that you drive me half wild 
by your extravagance ; that you have neither 
common gratitude nor common consideration 
for your husband ; but you thwart me at every 
turn. You deliberately put yourself in opposi- 
tion to every plan or wish of mine. You dis- 
gust by your arrogance the people whom it is 
my special interest to be on good terms with ; 
and you seek the company of fashionable fools 
who teach you to squander my money and de- 
spise my friends. Take care, Georgina ! I warn 
you to take care ! There are limits to even my 
indulgence.” 

Mr. Frost had uttered the last words in his 
heat, after the carriage had drawn up at his own 
door. And the words had been heard by the 
servant who opened it. 

Mrs. Frost was mortified. She even shed a 
few tears. But her husband’s wrath was flam- 
ing too high to be extinguished by a few tears 
at that moment. 

“That is all I get,” said Mrs. Frost to her- 
self, as ‘her maid was brushing out her hair, “ for 
consenting to go near that odious Bedford Square 
set at all ! I was a fool to consent. I don’t be- 
lieve a word about its being important to Sidney 
whether Hugh Lockwood marries a princess or a 
pauper. It is merely to carry out some scheme 


of that artful little creature Mrs. Lockwood. But 
she shall find that whatever her influence over 
my husband may be, she can not make me an 
accomplice in her plots.” 

♦ 

CHAPTER- VIII. 

HUGH WILL NOT BE AMBITIOUS. 

About the middle of June Mr. Frost departed 
for Italy. He was only to be away a fortnight 
at first. He would then return to London ; and, 
if all went well, Avould go back to Naples in the 
autumn. 

He had been to Gower Street several times be- 
fore leaving England. He had spoken to Hugh 
about his prospects, and had said that if matters 
succeeded with the company who were employ- 
ing him he should be able to offer Hugh a splen- 
did chance of distinguishing himself. 

“But,” said Hugh, “this great company will 
have a great architect of their own. There will 
be subordinates, of course, to do the drudgery, 
and the big man will get the credit. I do not 
say that that is unfair. Big men have to earn 
their bigness, mostly, and I am the last fellow in 
the world to grudge them what they’ve earned. 
Besides, I do not want to be wandering about 
the Continent. I have served my apprenticeship 
and learned my trade, and now I want to try to 
make a home for myself and a place in the world. 
I am not ambitious — ” 

“A man ought to be ambitious,” said Mr. 
Frost. 

“ There might be a good deal to be said on 
that subject. But at all events, a man ought not 
to say he is ambitious if he isn’t.” 

His mother and Mr. Frost succeeded, however, 
in persuading Hugh to remain some months lon- 
ger in his present position. He was engaged by 
Digby and West at a weekly salary, and no per- 
manent arrangement had yet been come to. He 
would let things go on as they were for a while. 

Zillah had gained a reprieve, but her anxieties 
remained active. At the best, she had trouble 
before her. If all went well, and her money — 
Hugh’s money — were restored by the end of the 
year, it would still devolve on her to give her son 
some explanation as to this accession of fortune. 

Her son’s love and respect were very precious 
to her : even as her husband’s had been. She 
knew that Hugh inherited his father’s stern ha- 
tred of deception. What would he say when he 
knew that his mother had concealed so import- 
ant a matter — and one which he surely had a 
right to be made acquainted with — all these 
years? And if he asked her, “Mother, why 
have you done this?” how should she answer 
him ? 

She was a woman of acute and observant in- 
telligence in luost cases. In all that concerned 
her only son sffe was, of course, peculiarly quick 
to see and to understand. She knew that Hugh 
had fallen in love, and that his love was not the 
light, boyish fancy that Mr. Frost had tried to 
persuade her it would prove to be. Hugh had 
said no word to her on the subject, but there 
needed no word to convince her that she was 
right. And she liked Maud. She did not love 
her. She was not clingingly affectionate by na- 
ture, and all the love in her heart was absorbed 


60 


VERONICA. 


by her son. But she had a kindly regard for the 
girl. She admired and approved her. She was 
not grudging or unjust because this stranger with 
the deep blue eyes and golden hair had become 
paramount in Hugh’s thoughts. She knew him 
to be steadfast and true; and she was well as- 
sured that neither lover nor wdfe would push her- 
self from her due place in her son’s love and re- 
spect. But as she watched Hugh’s growing love 
for Maud, the thought of falling from her own 
high honorable place in his regard became more 
and more painful and intolerable to her. Hugh 
had implicit faith in his mother’s purity and 
goodness. She was his high model of woman- 
hood; and he had often said to her, “I only 
hope my wife may be as good as my mother ! I 
can't wish for any thing better.” But could he 
still say so when he knew — ? 

There was a little human jealousy within her 
breast which made her feel that to humble her- 
self now before Hugh, and say to him, “My 
son, I have sinned. Forgh^e me!” would be to 
yield to that other woman whom he loved a too 
absolute supremacy ; to abdicate in her favor the 
sole pride and glory of her life. She did not hate 
Maud for stealing Hugh’s heart. The wife would 
be nearest and dearest ; that she was resigned, 
if not content, to bear. She would still be his 
honored mother. But she thought she would 
come to hate Maud if Hugh ever were to dimin- 
ish by one iota his tribute of filial reverence. 
And all this time Maud knew no more of the 
position she occupied in the thoughts of the mo- 
ther and son than we any of us know of the place 
we hold in each other’s minds. 

After the party at IMr. Lovegrove’s Maud had 
seriously begged her aunt not to take her out to 
any similar gathering again. 

“ I would not say this, dear Aunt Hilda,” said 
IMaud, “ if I thought that you derived any grati- 
fication from the society of those people. But I 
watched you the other night, and I saw, I fan- 
cied, that you looked very Aveary and uninterested. ” 

“Not uninterested as long as my pet was 
there. I like to see ye admired, Maud.” 

“ Admired ! Dear Aunt Hilda — ” 

“ Well I know, I grant ye that the folks there 
were not of the class you ought to associate with. 
And if I were but in my rightful and proper posi- 
tion, what a delight it would be for me to present 
ye to the world you were born to live in ! But as 
to presenting, my dear child, sure how Avould I 
go to court in a street cab ? and living in Gower 
titreet! I don’t say any thing against it, and 
some of the old family mansions are in drearier 
places ; but, after all, you know, there would be 
a degree of incongruity about attempting to en- 
tertain, or any thing of that sort, in a lodging of 
this kind ; and ye know, Maud, he barely allows 
me enough for the necessaries of life as it is. 
Some women would run him into debt. But I 
couldn’t bring myself to do that — barring abso- 
lute necessity : not to mention tWat 7’d have to 
bear all the bullying and annoyance, seeing that 
he’s safe and comfortable away beyond seas!” 

Maud endeavored to persuade her aunt that it 
was no feeling of pride which rendered her un- 
willing to go to the Lovegroves. She disclaimed 
such a sentiment with much warmth. No ; it 
Avas simply that the people she met there Avere 
uncongenial to her. That might be partly her 
OAA’n fault, but the fact remained so. 


Maud did not say that the anxiety of suspense 
about Veronica made it irksome to her to see 
strangers. It Avas a subject that could not be 
mentioned betAveen her aunt and herself. But 
as the Aveeks Avore on, and no ansAver came to 
her letter, her heart sank. She had scarcely 
been aware hoAv strong a hope had sprung up 
within her on the receipt of Veronica’s letter, 
until she began to measure the depth of her dis- 
appointment as the time rolled by and brought 
no further communication. 

In the old days at Shipley Maud Avould haA'e 
enjoyed the oddity and neAvness of the society she 
had met at the LoA^egroves’. But noAv such en- 
joyment Avas impossible to her. She Avas con- 
scious of nei’Aously shrinking from a new face, 
of nervously dreading a chance Avord Avhich might 
touch on the still recent shame and sorroAv that 
had befallen them all, as a Avounded person starts 
aAvay from the approach of CA'en the gentlest 
hand, lest it should lay itself unaAA'ares upon his 
hurt. 

Mr. Frost’s sudden mention of his proposed 
journey to Italy had disturbed her for this rea- 
son ; thouglr she told herself hoAv absurd and 
Aveak it was to be so disturbed. Hundreds of 
people Avent to Italy, of course ; many even of 
the few people she kneAv Avere likely enough to 
do so. But in the frequent silent dii-ection of 
her thoughts toAvard Veronica she had groAA'n 
to associate her entirely Avith the Avord “Italy,” 
as though that country held but one figure for 
all men’s observation ! 

The question persistently presented itself to 
her mind : Did Mr. Frost knoAV the story of 
Veronica? Was he aAvare Avho the man AA'as 
Avith Avhom she had fled ? 

Something a little forced and unnatural in Mr. 
Frost’s manner of introducing the subject of his 
approaching journey had struck her. Why should 
he have selected her to speak to respecting Hugh 
Lockwood’s prospects ? Had he had any puiqDose 
in his mind of sounding her respecting her feel- 
ing tOAA ard Veronica, and had he chosen this ex- 
cuse for giving her the information that he AA'as 
bound for Italy? 

The impossibility of discussing this matter 
Avith her aunt, and the necessity she was ixnder 
of shutting herself up from the consolation of 
sympathy or companionship regarding it, made 
her morbidly sensitive, fcihe brooded and tor- 
mented herself. 

At last she took a resolution : she AA'ould 
speak to Mrs. Lockwood. That the latter had 
learned the Avhole story from her Aunt Hilda, 
she Avas Avell convinced. But even Avere that not 
so, Mrs. LockAvood Avould have heard it all from 
Hugh. IMr. Frost was the Lockwoods’ old and 
intimate friend. Maud resolved to speak to Mrs. 
LockAvood. One afternoon after their early din- 
ner she stole down stairs, leaving Lady Tallis 
asleep according to custom. Her tap at the par- 
lor door AA'as ansAvered by Mrs. LockAvood’s soft 
voice, saying, “Come in ;” and she entered. 

Mrs. LockAvood sat at the table, Avith an ac- 
count-book before her. She looked, Maud 
thought, old and harassed. 

“Do I disturb you, Mrs. LockAvood ? Please 
say so, if I do ; and I Avill take another oppor- 
tunity — ” 

“You don’t disturb me in the least, my dear 
Miss Desmond. I haA’e just finished my ac- 


VERONICA. 


61 


counts for the month. Do sit down and tell me 
what I can do for you. There is nothing the 
matter with my lady?” she added, hastily, look- 
ing at Maud’s face. 

“Nothing, nothing. Do not let me startle 
you. I wanted to take the liberty of speaking 
to you in confidence — may I ?” 

Mrs. Lockwood took off the spectacles she 
was wearing, passed her hands over her fore- 
head and eyes, and answered, quietly, “Pray 
speak.” 

Her manner was not tender nor encouraging, 
nor even very cordial ; but it nerved Maud bet- 
ter than a too great show of feeling would have 
done. In a few words she told Mrs. Lockwood 
what Mr. Frost had said to her at the Love- 
groves’ about his journey to Italy, and so forth. 

“Now what I wanted to ask you was this,” 
said Maud: “You know Mr. Frost well, and I 
do not ; do you suppose he had any special mo- 
tive in saying all this to me, a total stranger ?” 

“Any special motive?” repeated Mrs. Lock- 
wood, reddening, and looking, for her, singular- 
ly embarrassed. 

“I mean — what I mean is this, Mrs. Lock- 
wood : the story of the great sorrow and afflic- 
tion that has befallen the home that was my 
home from the time I was a little child until the 
other day, is known to you. I am afraid — that 
is, no doubt it is known to many, many other 
people. Is Mr. Frost one of those who know it ? 
And did he mean to learn any thing or tell any 
tiling about Veronica v heii he spoke to me of 
going to Italy ?” 

“ Oh !” said Mrs. Lockwood, drawing a long 
breath and then covering her mouth with one 
white, delicate hand. “You were not thinking 
of yourself, then. Miss Desmond ?” 

“Of myself? What could Mr. Frost’s plans 
be to me, or why should he care that I should 
know them?” 

“ It was of Hugh he spoke, I thought.” 

“ Ah, yes ; but incidentally almost. He spoke 
to me as of something that it concerned vie to 
know] I think of Veronica so constantly, and 
I am obliged to lock my thoughts up from Aunt 
Hilda so jealously, that perhaps I grow morbid. 
But I thought you would forgive my speaking to 
you.” 

“ As to Mr. Frost, I can answer you in two 
words. He knows from the Lovegroves that 
you have left Mr. Levincourt’s house because his 
daughter ran away under particularly painful cir- 
cumstances. But if your aunt has been dis- 
creet” (it was a large “if,” and Zillah plainly 
showed that she kneAv it was so), “neither the 
Lovegroves nor Mr. Frost know the name of the 
man she ran away with. It has been a subject 
of gossip, truly, but not in the circles of society 
where the Lovegroves move. Sir J ohn Gqle has 
lived so long out of England that he is almost 
forgotten.” 

“Thank you, Mrs. Lockwood,” said Maud, 
absently. 

“I infer from what you say that you have 
some reason to believe that your guardian’s 
daughter is at present in Italy ?” 

“Oh yes, I forgot that you did not know. 
I — I had a letter from her.” 

Mrs. Lockwood raised her eyebrows and look- 
ed at Maud attentively. 

‘ ‘ I know I can trust you not to mention this 


to my aunt. You understand how impossible it 
is for me to speak of Veronica to her. Aunt 
Hilda is kind and gentle, and yet, on that sub- 
ject, she speaks with a harshness that is very 
painful to me.” 

“ Lady Tallis has been infamously treated.” 

“You must understand, if you please, Mrs. 
Lockwood, that I have told Mr. Levincourt of 
my letter. It is only a secret from Aunt Hilda. ” 

“You were very fond of this young lady?” 
said Zillah, with her eyes observantly fixed on 
Maud’s changing face. 

“Yes,” answered Maud. Then the tears 
gathered to her eyes, and for the moment she 
could say no more. 

“Your fondness has not been destroyed by 
this miserable business ?” pursued Zillah. 

Maud silently shook her head, and the tears 
fell faster. 

“ Would you see her and speak to her again if 
you could ? Would you hold out your hand to her?” 

Mrs. Lockwood, as she spoke, kept her mouth 
concealed beneath her hand, and her eyes on 
Maud’s face. 

Maud was aware of a certain constraint in the 
elder woman’s tone. She thought it sounded 
disapproving, almost stem. 

“Oh, Mrs. Lockwood,” she cried, in much 
agitation, “do not judge her too hardly ! You 
have such a lofty standard of duty ; your son has 
told me how excellent your life has been ; he is 
so proud of you. But do not be too hard on her. 
If the good have no pity for hen what will be- 
come of her ? I do not defend her. She failed 
in her duty toward her father ; but she has been 
most basely and cruelly deceived, I am sure of 
it!” 

“ Deceived by her great love and faith in this 
man ?” said Zillah, unwaveringly preserving the 
same look and attitude. 

Maud grew very pale, and drooped her head. 
“She — she — trusted him,” she murmured. 

Zillah removed her hand from her mouth, and, 
clasping both hands, rested them on the table 
before hei*. When her mouth was no longer 
concealed, she cast her eyes down, and ceased to 
look at Maud while she spoke. 

“See now. Miss Desmond,” said she, in her 
soft voice, “how unequally justice is meted out 
in this world 1 Once I knew a girl — little more 
than a child in years — very ignorant, very un- 
protected, and very confiding. She was not a 
handsome, haughty young lady, living in a re- 
spectable home. This girl’s associates were all 
low, vile people. She was not by nature vicious 
or wicked, but she loved with her whole child- 
ish, inexperienced heart, and she fell. S/ie was 
‘ most basely and cruelly deceived’ — I quote your 
words. It was neither vanity nor vainglory that 
led her astray — nothing but simple, blind, mis- 
placed afiection. Well, nobody pitied her, no- 
body cared for her, nobody helped her. If you, 
or any delicately nurtured young lady like you, 
had met her in the street, you would have drawn 
your garments away from the contamination of 
her touch.” 

“No, no, no 1 Indeed you wrong me ! If I 
had known her story I should have pitied her 
from the bottom of my heart.” 

Zillah proceeded without heeding the inter- 
ruption. “And all her sufferings — they Avere 
acute — I knew her very well — could not atone. 


G2 


VERONICA. 


Her fault (I use the word for want of a better. 
Where fault lay, God knows — perhaps He 
cares !) — ” 

“Oh, Mrs. Lockwood!” 

“ Do I shock you ? That girl’s fault pursued 
her through life — still pursues her — ” 

“Is she alive?” 

“Alive? No; I think she is dead, that girl. 
Her ghost walks sometimes. But another wo- 
man, in some respects a very different woman, 
inherits her legacy of trouble and shame and sor- 
row. That seems hard. But if you tell me 
that all life is hard ; that we are blind to what is 
our bane or what our good, or utter any other 
fatalist doctrine, I can understand the reason 
and sequence of it. But when you preach to me 
that ‘Conduct makes fate,’ that we reap as we 
sow, and so forth, I point to these two cases. 
The one an innocent — yes, an innocent — child ; 
the other a well-educated, proud, beautiful, be- 
loved young woman. The loving-hearted child 
is crushed and tortured and forsaken. The — 
forgive me, but I speak what you know to be 
true — the selfish, vain, arrogant, ambitious lady 
commits the same sin against the world, and is 
rich, petted, and pampered. The rough places 
are made smooth for her feet. People cry ‘ How 
sad ! A lady ! The daughter of a clergyman !’ 
Her friends hold out their hands to take her back. 
Even you — a pure, fresh, young creature like 
you — are ready to mourn over her, and to forgive 
and caress her with angelic sweetness and pity.” 

Maud could^not help pei'ceiving that Mrs. 
Lockwood was mentally visiting on Veronica the 
hard usage of the poor betrayed young girl she 
had spoken of. It seemed as though in propor- 
tion to the pity that she felt for that young girl, 
slie grudged every pitying word tliat was bestow- 
ed on Veronica. Maud felt it very strange that 
it should be so ; and she had almost a sense of 
guilt herself for having become aware of it. But 
her intellect was too clear for self-delusion, and, 
albeit most unwillingly, she could not but under- 
stand the spirit of Mrs. Lockwood’s words, and 
be repulsed by it. 

“ I think — ” said Maud, gently, and turning 
her pale face full on Mrs. Lockwood: “I am 
young and inexperienced, I know, but I do 
tliink that having loved one suffering person 
very much should make us tender to other suf- 
ferers. ” 

“ Sufferers !” repeated Mrs. Lockwood, Avith a 


cold contempt, and closed her mouth rigidly when 
she had spoken. 

“Yes,” answered Maud, firmly. The color 
rose very faintly in her cheek, and her blue eyes 
shone. ‘ ‘ My unhappy friend is a sufferer. Not 
the less a sufferer because there is truth in some 
of the words you have applied to her. Pride and 
ambition do not soften such a fall as hers.” 

Again Maud could not help perceiving that 
Mrs. Lockwood Avas balancing Veronica’s fate 
against the fate of the betrayed young girl ; and 
that she derived a strange satisfaction from the 
suggestion that Veronica’s haughty spirit could 
be tortured by humiliation. 

“ There Avould be a grain of something like 
justice in that,” said Zillah, under her breath. 

Maud AvithdreAv Avith a pained feeling. Her 
mind had at first been relieved by the mere fact 
of uttering the name of one Avho dwelt so con- 
stantly in her thoughts. But Mrs. LoclcAvood s 
manner had so repulsed her that she iiiAvardly 
resoh’ed neA’er again to approach the subject of 
Veronica’s fate in speaking to her. But to her 
surprise the topic seemed to have a mysterious 
attraction for Mrs. LockAvood. Whenever she 
found herself alone Avith Maud she aa'us sure, 
sooner or later, to come round to it. 

Once she said, after a long pause of silence, 
during Avhich her fingers Avere busied Avith nee- 
dle- Avork and her eyes cast doAvn on it, “ If that 
poor young girl — she is dead noAv, you knoAv — 
could haA'e had a friend like you, Miss Desmond, 
years and years ago, it might have gone differ- 
ently Avith her. It Avould haA'e given her courage 
to knoAv that such a pure-hearted Avoman pitied 
rather than blamed hei*. ” 

“I should think all honest hearts must be 
filled Avith compassion at her story,” ansAvered 
Maud, in a Ioav voice. 

“ Do you think a man’s heart Avould be ? Do 
you think that, for instance, mv — my son’s Avould 
be?” 

“ Surely ! Can you doubt it ?” 

“Poor girl! She aa'us so ignorant of the 
world ! She kneAv there Avas a great gulf be- 
tAveen her and such as you are. She had never 
liA'ed Avith good people. They Avere as distant 
from her as the inhabitants of the moon might 
be. If she had had a friend like you, Miss Des- 
mond, that poor girl aa'Iio is dead, it AA^ould have 
given her courage, and it might hai’e gone difier- 
ently Avith her.” 


BOOK III. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE ROAD THAT LED NOAVHITHER. 

Very near to Florence is the A^alley of the 
Ema. 

The Ema is a small stream Avhich strikingly 
contradicts the proA^erb, “As you make your 
bed, so you must lie on it,” the bed the Ema 
has formed for itself being a valley a mile or so 
broad in some places, reckoning from hill to 
hill ; and the little river trickling through it, 
noAvadays, in a disproportionately small chan- 
nel, Avhich may be (and is in more than one 


part of its course) spanned by a bridge of a 
single* small arch. The ridge of hills dividing 
the valley of the Ema from that of the Arno is 
well knoAvn by sight to most of the many stran- 
gers Avho go to Florence. FeAv casual visitors, 
hoAvever, cross the ridge. The landscape seen 
from its summit is peculiarly Tuscan, and to the 
unaccustomed eye there is something drear and 
melancholy mingling Avith its beauty. After a 
time that impression is much softened. The 
peculiar delicacy of coloring ; the long vistas of 
hills that fold like clouds one over the other, and 
present nearly as much variety of outline as the 


VEROXICA. 


C3 


clouds themselves ; the countless towers, villas, 
and churches that lie scattered over the scene, 
and peep forth from amidst the hoary olive- 
trees, combine to charm the sight. 

We come to Imrn the loveliness, as we learn 
the expression of a face whose stranger aspect 
was so different from its known and familiar 
one that the recollection of our first impression 
startles us. 

The great enchantment of this Tuscan land- 
scape lies in the atmosphere through which it is 
viewed. The wonderful lights and shades, the 
exquisite tints, the limpid clearness of the skies, 
are inestimable in their effect upon the scenery. 
In a winter afternoon at sunset, the bare, dis- 
tant Apennines are touched with such ethereal 
hues — such lilacs, silvery-grays, blues, and rose- 
colors — that they look like mother-of-pearl 
mountains in some fairy story. Not Hope her- 
self can more delusively beautify the barren dis- 
tance than does this southern air. 

Then, as the sun goes down, and the brief 
twilight deepens, there grows a. solemn purple 
on the hills — a color that seems, in its intense 
bloomy depth, to fold around them like a cloud- 
garment. It is not that the hills grow purple, 
but that the great purple descends and wraps 
itself about the hills. Or, in the early summer 
days, what a fathomless ocean of dazzling blue 
is it that the swalloAvs sail across ! Bright, rapid, 
gladsome little skiffs upon that silent sea ! Every 
projecting stone in the cottages is precious, cast- 
ing as it does an island of black shadow on the 
glare of wall or road. The springing wheat is 
almost too emerald-bright to be gazed upon. 
Beside the burned brown tower on the hill 
stand the strong cypresses, writing dark char- 
acters against the shimmering sky — hieroglyph- 
ics which different eyes so differently interpret, 
and which to some remain dumb and unread 
forever. 

It is June. Through the vale of Ema ripples 
the shrunken river among the parched, thirsty 
sand. Here and there comes a stretch that 
seems to have absorbed the little stream. You 
can cross it dry-shod. But, lo! some furlongs 
off, it purls and gurgles once more amidst the 
reeds. The frogs keep up an incessant cry, 
tremulous and guttural ; and now and then one 
of them ])lashes luxuriously into the cool water 
beneath the shadow of the bank. The cicala, 
in his bronze coat of mail, sends forth a shrill 
sound, like the springing of an infinitely tiny 
rattle made of the finest steel. It seems to be 
to the ear what the hot quivering of the air is 
to the eye, and to be equally suggestive of sun- 
shine. Swarms of colored butterflies flutter 
brightly {iround. Orange, crimson, blue, white, 
])urple, yellow ; if a rainbow could fall from the 
sky, and be scattered into a thousand fragments 
as it fell, it could shower down no bright tint 
these winged flowers would fail to match. 

On the dry, dusty, crumbling paths that climb 
the hills bounding the valleys the light beats 
fiercely. The grass is parched, and sparsely 
grown, and dry. Here and there glitters a bunch 
of glaring yellow weeds, made bold and flaunt- 
ing by the munificent sun, like a coarse favorite 
of fortune. Little cold bright-eyed lizards glide 
in and out of the chinks ii} the rough stone-walls 
that flank the main roads. Some of the lizards 
are as green as enii^ralds. Others, again, are of 


the same hue as the brownest of the blocks of 
stone. Sometimes they will remain as motion- 
less as the stone itself, gazing with their round, 
unwinking, black diamonds of eyes, until the 
passer-by might think that they were hardened 
and baked stiff and stony by the heat. But sud- 
denly, at some sound or sight which startles it — 
or, it may be, from pure caprice — the little rep- 
tile flits away as swift and noiseless as a flash of 
light, and is gone. 

Over the top of the wall tumbles a laden branch 
of roses or the starry clematis. The Avheat is 
high, and the green vines, full of leaf, hang rich- 
ly on the pollard mulberry-stems. The gray 
olive stands up to his middle in a sea of grain. 
The corn and wine and oil all grow together on 
the same fertile field. Every thing is steeped in 
sunlight. Only the oliA'e’s silvery foliage con- 
veys a thought of coolness. It is always a moon- 
light tree. In the sultriest summer noontide its 
soft gray tint, and the fantastic weirdness of its 
shadowy form (especially in the older trees, 
which liaA'e been scooped and cut until nothing 
but a seemingly unsubstantial shell of trunk re- 
mains to them), and the trembling, feathery 
plume of branches recall the cold bright pallor 
of the moon, that makes the shuddering flowers 
so wan- and bloomless Avhen the night breeze 
ruffles their dewy breasts. 

Drought and a sultry silence, which the cicala’s 
cry seems but to emphasize, not break, prevail 
along the dusty road, as we wander along the 
Ema's course, further and still further away 
from the fair city of Elorence, going eastward. 
Presently, Avith many a laboring creak and jar, 
comes lumbering by a clumsy country cart, 
draAvn by two of the colossal, doA'e-colored Tus- 
' can oxen. The driver — or he Avho should be 
driving, rather — lies asleep under a shady aAvn- 
ing of matting at the bottom of his rude A'ehicle. 
The cart is one Avhich might have been copied 
inch for inch from a Roman bass-relief, and has 
been copied through a long series of models from 
the cart that bore home the produce of the teem- 
ing Italian soil in Horace’s day. The docile 
heaA’y beasts that draAv it turn their grand dark 
eyes askance upon the passenger as they meet 
him, and bloAV a fragrant breath from moist, 
ample nostrils. 

i'olloAving the Avindings of the road, Avhich noAV 
runs for a short space on the level, close to the 
Ema, Ave come to a steep ascent on the right, 
leading up to the summit of one of the highest 
eminences overlooking the valley. Instead of 
sloping gently doAvn tOAvard the river, as most 
of the neighboring hills do, this one terminates 
on the side of the Ema in an abrupt precipice. 
The steep ascent before mentioned leaves the 
main highAA-ay to climb this height. The road 
is narroAv, strewn thickly Avith great smooth peb- 
bles, like the bed of a torrent, and only kept 
from crumbling bodily doAvn into the valley in 
summer, or being AA’ashed aAvay by the rain in 
Avinter, by horizontal lines of rough stone paA*- 
ing, placed like the rungs of a ladder, Avhich suc- 
ceed each other at Avide intervals, and afford a 
foothold to any laden mule that may be driven 
up or doAvn. To Avheels the road is quite inac- 
cessible. Arrived on the summit, it tunis abrupt- 
ly to the left betAveen high stone-Avalls, Avithin 
j Avhich the soil is so much higher than the road — 
1 a common circumstance in Tuscan flirms — that 


64 


VERONICA. 


ths corn and wild flowers peep over the top 
of the wall, and the olives and fruit trees rear 
nearly their whole height above it. The walls 
and the foliage shut out all glimpse of the view 
to right or left ; but presently we come to an 
open space, a little piazzetta, and the wide land- 
scape bursts upon us. It is so bright and airy 
and unexpected that we feel as though we had 
come out of a dark room into the daylight. We 
are on the topmost ridge of a line of hills that 
slope down on either hand — this way toward the 
Ema, that way toward the Arno. 

Close, here in the fore-ground, is a tiny church 
with a low campanile, or bell-tower, on its roof. 
It is the church of Saint John in Jerusalem. 
l3ut the neighboring peasants know it by no 
other name than San Gersole, that being the 
popular contraction of the ten syllables neces- 
sary to the pronunciation of San Giovanni in 
Jerusalemme. In front of the church lies the 
little piazzetta, bounded on the side opposite to 
tlie church-door by a low parapet wall, and en- 
tirely surrounded by huge cypresses. Beyond 
this parapet what a dream of purple hills, veiled 
sliglitly here and there by a silvery gauze of hot 
mist! What a widening plain, ever widening 
toward the sea, that is green near at hand, and 
then in the distance bluish -gray, and holds 
Arno, sleepily flowing on his course, brighten- 
ing it with rare gleams reflected from the sky ! 
What a vision of a city, whose house-roofs seem 
to press and throng like a holiday crowd, and 
of an awful dome, and soaring towers and spires, 
and churches and palaces, and old arched gate- 
ways, showing burned and brown as colossal frag- 
ments of Etruscan pottery! What a dazzling 
speck of whiteness on the far horizon, that looks 
like a wandering cloud, but is the jagged line 
of the Carrara marble mountains many a mile 
away! What a strange melancholy charm as 
the eye explores the naked Apennine, discrown- 
ed long ages of his rich regal wreath of woods, 
rearing parched and crumbling heights to the 
relentless sun, and with black gashes of shadow 
where a deep ravine winds its mysterious way 
into the central strong-hold of the hills ! What 
a waveless sea of azure air, into whose limpid 
depths the very soul seems to plunge and float 
as we gaze! And subtly steeping all this in a 
flood of glory, what a divinely terrible, divine- 
ly beneficent, dazzling, flaming, white-hot sun- 
shine ! 

Drought, and a sultry silence, shaking to the 
shrill song of the cicala, as we stand and gaze. 

Suddenly a jangling bell breaks forth discord- 
antly. Up in the square campanile of San Ger- 
sole it is swinging in uneasy jerks — ting-tang, 
ting- tang, jingle -jangle jingle — without any 
rhythm. 

Out of the dark little church comes a pro- 
cession. Two priests; boys in white surplices 
swinging censers; men carrying a lofty crim- 
son banner bearing the painted miracle of some 
saint ; and some dozen or so of peasant men and 
women (the latter largely predominating) in holi- 
day attire, carrying missals, and shouting forth 
a Latin hymn in a quaint, monotonous chant. 
Round the little piazza they march solemnly, 
sending up curling clouds of incense into the 
leafy darkness of the cypresses, and jealously 
edging on to every inch of shade as they walk 
slowly, bareheaded, under the summer sky. 


Once, twice, three times, they make the circuit 
of the piazza. Then the dark church-door swal- 
I lows them again. The bell ceases to jangle, and 
I the last whiff of incense floats away into the air. 

Standing with San Gersole' on the left, and the 
I parapet wall on the right, and looking straight 
before us, whither does the road lead ? 

“Nowhither,” answers an old contadino, who 
has been tending his cows in a shed close at hand. 
Cows know no diflerence between work days and 
feast days, but need their fodder and litter all 
the same, though it be the festa of the saint whose 
legend is commemorated on the crimson banner. 
Therefore the old contadino has been tending 
them, with a large apron made of coarse blue 
linen tied over his holiday clothes. And if you 
ask him again whither the road leads he will still 
answer “nowhither.” You do not “come out,” 
he says ; the road leads nowhither, save — as, if 
you press him hard with questions, he will be 
driven to tell you — to the extreme edge of the 
precipice that overhangs the valley of the Ema. 

But is there nothing, then, between San Ger- 
sole and the edge of the precipice, save a strip 
of road leading nowhither ? Ah, truly, yes ; there 
is a garden ; a large garden. And there is a 
house ; a large house : the Villa Chiari. Oh 
yes, as to that ; yes, yes. But the road — what 
would you ? — leads nowhither. 

Proceeding along it, nevertheless, we reach a 
forlorn-looking, grass-grown space. The grass 
is burned straw-color, and a foot-path is worn 
across it. The foot-path shows the bare brown 
earth beaten and baked quite hard. Across it 
streams an endless procession of big black ants, 
as zealously busy a crowd pressing importantly 
^ along the road that “leads nowhither” as you 
shall ever have seen even in Fleet Street, London 
City. No other living thing is to be beheld, not 
even a butterfly ; but the cicala still springs his 
tiny steel rattle in the sultry silence. 

Before us is a high wall, whose plaster is 
crumbling and peeling off. There are massive 
iron gates, worked by some cunning artisan of 
the old Florentine time, rusty and bent, and part- 
ly off their hinges. One-half of the gate stands 
open. It must have stood open this many a long 
day — many a long year, perhaps — for the grass 
has grown around it thickly, and one side of it is 
partly buried in the soil, and a colony of wild 
flowers has sprung up in the shelter of its crook- 
ed shadow. On either side of the gate hangs 
down a tangled mass of leaves and branches 
clothing the unsightly wall, and nearly hiding a 
marble tablet — moss-grown and discolored — 
whereon are graven the words “Villa Chiari,” 
suTmounted by an elaborate coat of arms. The 
ivy, dog-rose, and honey-suckle are all matted 
together, so as to form a thick screen over the 
tablet. But it matters the less, in that this is 
not the grand entrance to the house. No one 
enters by this old gate, save the contadini belong- 
ing to the adjacent farm. On the other side is a 
good road, well engineered, and mounting by due 
zigzags to a green painted gateway, and a grav- 
eled sweep before the portico. 

But that is a long way off, and there are some 
acres of garden ground between the road that 
“leads nowhither” and that -which officially con- 
ducts to Villa Chiari. 

In the old times many a lady’s palfrey, and 
many a churchman’s amblinp^ mule, and many a 


VERONICA. 


rich litter borne by lackeys, and holding a lux- 
urious Medicean noble, may have passed along 
the old steep Avay. Then the fine scroll-work of 
the iron gates cast the black traceiy of its shad- 
ow on fair faces and bright hair glistening in the 
sunshine, and made them fairer and more bright 
by contrast. And they, too, haA'e gone their way 
along the road that “leads nowhither,” and the 
sculptured marble is Avhite above their tombs, 
and the wild flowers twine fearlessly around the 
unhinged gate. 

We pass the gateAvay and find ourselves in a 
neglected garden — neglected in this part of it, 
that is ; for near the house the walks are rolled 
and weeded, and the flower-beds are as trim and 
bright as patterns in a kaleidoscope. But here 
are paths all overgrown with greenery, tangled 
thickets of laurestinum, lilac, rose, and oleander. 
There is a pergola, or trellis, covered with vines. 
And the eglantine and clematis and clinging hon- 
ey-suckle have usurped its support, and pushed 
their fragrant faces peeringly in here and there 
amidst the leaves and the grape blossoms. From 
the bosky gloom of a grove of acacia and ilex 
trees, thickly undergroAvn with laurel and lilac, 
comes the mellow fluting trill of a nightingale, like 
the perfume out of the heart of a rose. Now and 
again is heard the flutter of wings, as some little 
brooding bird stirs in his noonday dream, and 
then is still again. Onward Ave Avander beneath 
the freshness of the pergola, then out again into 
the fiery air. Still onAvard, past a broken mar- 
ble basin, once a fountain, where a tiny stream 
drips out of a crevice and makes a green track in 
the parched herbage, and Avhere a harmless snake 
is sunning himself asleep. And Ave come to a 
deep blot of shadoAV that shoAvs against the glare 
of the ground, like a black mountain tarn amidst 
snow. The shadoAV is throAAm from an ancient 
cypress that stands, lonely as a sentinel, upon the 
brink of the precipice, at the end of the road that 
“leads noAA'hither. ” And in the shadow sits a 
lady, young and beautiful, looking out at the 
far-aAvay Apennine, and quite alone. 

O- 

CHAPTER II. 

VILLA C H I A K I. 

The lady sitting in the shadoAv was Veronica. 
She Avore a 'I’liscan hat Avith a wide flapping 
brim, such as the peasant Avomen wear. And 
beneath it her eyes gleamed and her cheeks 
gloAved brighter than ever. She had wrapped a 
Avhite burnous as fine as gossamer around her 
shoulders, and sat huddled together under the 
cypress, Avith her elboAvs resting on her knees 
and her cheeks resting on her hands. It Avas 
shady beneath the cypress, but it was not cool. 
No spot to Avhich the hot sun-impregnated air 
had free access could be cool. Still, Veronica 
sat there looking out at the far-aAvay barren Ap- 
ennine, Avith her elbows resting on her knees 
and her cheeks resting on her hands. 

A man came through the garden toAvard her, 
a short, thick-set, gray-haired man, staid and re- 
spectful, Avho bared his head in the sunshine as 
he addressed her. 

“Signora!” said the gray-haired man, and 
then stood still and Avaited. 

Veronica neither turned her head nor her eyes 
E 


Go 

tOAvard him. But her color rose a very little, 
and through her parted lips the breath came 
quicker. 

“Miladi!” said the gray-haired man. No 
shade of difference could be discovered in his 
tone. It was the same to him Avhether he used 
the one title or the other. If this lady preferred 
the English one, Avhy should she not have it ? 
He had learned that she liked it best ; but he 
AA’as very far indeed from understanding Avhy. 

“What is it, Paul?” 

“Pardon, miladi, but Sir John, on aAA’aking 
from his siesta, demanded to knoAv Avdiere you 
Avere ; and Avhen I told him that I supposed you 
Avere beneath the accustomed cypress, sent me to 
pray you to come in.”, 

Paul spoke in Italian — Avhich A\^as nearly as 
much a foreign language as English to his Pied- 
montese tongue — and addressed her Avith perfect 
respect, but AA'ith an indefinable air of taking it 
for granted that she would comply with any ex- 
pressed wish of Sir John’s, Avhich grated on the 
sensitive soreness of her haughty spirit. 

“I am very aa'cII here, and shall remain,” said 
Veronica, briefly. Then she turned her eyes 
aAvay (she had never relinquished her careless 
attitude) and seemed to dismiss him from her 
thoughts. 

“It is bad to stay here in the heat, miladi,” 
returned Paul. He spoke Avith the same calm, 
imperturbable air of knoAving his duty and do- 
ing it Avhich he had assumed toward Sir John 
Gale in the most irritable moments of his ill- 
ness. 

“I am in the shade,” said Veronica. And 
Avhen she had said it she bit her lip at having 
been betrayed into Avhat seemed an excuse or 
apology. 

Paul gravely unfurled a huge yellow sun- 
shade, lined Avith purple, which he had brought 
with him. It was characteristic of the man, 
and of the perfect sense he had of his OAvn po- 
sition, that, albeit his bare head AA'as scorching 
in the glare, he had never thought of unfurling 
the sunshade for his own use. 

It came into the month’s Avages to endure 
personal inconvenience of some sort. A little 
roasting, a little freezing, a little Avetting — Avhat 
mattered ? There Avas that Aullage up in -the 
Alps, and there Avere the tAvo boys Avaiting to be 
educated to a point that Avould make them in- 
dependent of such disagreeable exertions and 
sacrifices. 

Paul put up the yelloAV umbrella, and held it 
OA’er Veronica’s head; he seemed so absolutely 
certain that she Avould get up off’ the ground and 
come A\dth him into the house that she rose as 
though some spell Avere moving her limbs. Sud- 
denly the Avillful, spoiled-child mood came upon 
her, and she threw herself doAvn again beneath 
the tree, saying, “Go and get me some cush- 
ions and a shaAvl. I shall stay here. I am en- 
joying the AueAV. ” 

“ In the eA'ening, signora — miladi — it is very 
fine here. Now, the sun Avill burn your skin, 
and spoil your eyes. It is not like in England, 
miladi ; at this hour in the summer, even up on 
a height like this, it is not good to be out in the 
sunshine. It makes the Avomen look old soon. 
See our contadine !” 

With this masterly stroke Paul gravely bent 
doAvn, hat in hand, and held his arm out for 


G6 


VERONICA. 


Veronica to lean on when she should rise — and 
she did rise. 

Paul walked a pace behind her holding the 
umbrella, and they proceeded toward the house. 
Instead of passing beneath the pergola they 
turned on reaching the old fountain — where 
their footsteps disturbed the snake, that slid 
away at their approach into the dry grass — to 
the left, and entered a path leading through a 
shrubbery. Here the walks were neat, the 
grass clipped, and the flowers duly tended. The 
grounds had not the fresh perfection of an En- 
glish garden. There was a want of finish about 
all the details — the finish that comes from doing 
thoroughly whatever is done — but nature had 
filled the place with light, and color, and per- 
fume, and it was very lovely. At a turn in the 
path the house came in view. Villa Chiari was 
an old and vast building, solid, heavy, and with 
few window's in proportion to the great extent 
of w^all-space. This circumstance, which w’ould 
make a house gloomy in a northern climate, is 
suggestive only of grateful shade and coolness 
to a dweller beneath Italian skies. Wealth had 
been unsparingly employed within the villa to 
make it a comfortable and luxurious residence, 
in accordance with modern English ideas of 
what is comfortable and luxurious : but without. 
Villa Chiari remained much as it had been any 
time these three hundred years. It was cov- 
ered with yellowish plaster. Situated as the 
house w'as, on a height, and fronting to the 
north, it had become much stained by wind and 
w^oather. The plaster w'as discolored, cracked, 
and, in some places, had peeled off altogether, 
revealing a rough solid wall constructed of min- 
gled brick and stone, after the Tuscan fashion. 
To each window were double wooden shutters 
or jalousies, painted green. These w^ere open 
on the side of the house that w'as in shadow, and 
were carefully closed whenever the sun’s rays 
beat against them like a flight of burning ar- 
rows. All the window's on the basement stoiy 
were protected against more earthly assailants 
by massive wrought-iron bars. 

Immediately beneath each of the lower win- 
dows W'as a stone bench, the sad, gray color of 
which was diversified by bright lichens. A large 
archway, closed by double doors, in the centre 
of the fa 9 ade, gave access to a paved court-yard 
open to the sky. Around the court-yard ran an 
open arcade — called here a loggia — and from it 
opened various doors leading to the interior of 
the dwelling. The roof was covered with an- 
cient tiles, mellowed into a rich sombre brown 
by time and sunshine. And from it, at one end 
of the building, rose a square tower, also tiled, 
and with overhanging pent-house eaves. 

There was something melancholy and forlorn 
in the exterior aspect of the house. ' The crum- 
bling plaster, the shut jalousies, the moss-grown 
uneven pavement before the door, the brooding 
stillness that hung over the whole place— a still- 
ness that seemed of death rather than sleep — 
were all depressing. 

Paul held open a low door beneath the loggia 
for Veronica to pass. 

She entered a shady corridor, w'hose marble 
pavement seemed icy cold to one coming from 
without. A moment ago she had longed for shade 
and coolness. Now theair of thehouse struck chill, 
and she shuddered, drawing the cloak around her. 


At the end of the corridor w^as a large saloon. 
The floor was still covered with a rich and very 
thick carpet, contrary to Italian usage, which re- 
quires that all carpets be removed from the mar- 
ble or painted brick floors in summer. There 
w'ere luxurious chairs, and sofas, and ottomans ; 
cabinets of rare workmanship and costly mate- 
rials ; silken hangings and gold-framed mirrors 
in the saloon. It had a lofty, vaulted ceiling, 
adorned with colossal stucco garlands, w'hite on 
a blue ground. The air was faint w'ith the rich 
perfume of floAvers disposed in massive groups 
about the room ; and only a dim sea-green twi- 
light filtered in through the closed jalousies. 

Sir John Gale was lying on a couch when Ve- 
ronica entered. He rose when she appeared, 
took her hand, and led her to a chair. He wms 
more high-shouldered than ever, and lean ; and 
in the greenish light his face looked ghastly. 
Paul had follow’ed Veronica to his master’s pres- 
ence, and had waited an instant ; but at a waA'e 
of Sir John’s hand he had Avithdrawn, closing 
the door noiselessly after him. 

Veronica tossed her broad-brimmed hat on to 
an ottoman near her, and threAV herself back in 
her chair Avith an air of consummate languor. 

Sir John’s eyes Avere accustomed to the dim- 
ness. He could see her better than she could 
see him, and he w’atched her AAuth a half-admir- 
ing, half-savage glance. 

“You have been out,” he said, after a silence 
of some minutes. 

She slightly bent her head. 

“I thought that you had been taking a siesta 
in your OAvn apartments.” 

She made a negatiA'e sign Avithout speaking. 

“Am I not deemed Avorthy of the honor of a 
AAmrd?” asked Sir John ; and though his mouth 
smiled as he said it, his eyebroAvs froAA’ned. 

“Too hot to talk!” murmured Veronica. 

“If you had remained indoors, as I have so 
frequently advised, at this hour, you AAmuld not 
noAv have been OA'ercome by the heat, Avhich is, 
of course, my first consideration ; and I should 
have enjoyed the pleasure of your conA ersation.” 

Veronica shrugged her shoulders, and smiled 
disdainfullv. 

“ Well, perhaps you are right,” said Sir John, 
ansAvering the smile Avith a sneer Mephistopheles 
might haA'e OAvned. “Perhaps you Avould not 
have made yourself agreeable if you had staid in. 
But at all events you Avould have done more 
Avisely-for yourself. You positively run the risk 
of getting a coup-de-soleil by running out in this 
incautious manner!” 

Veronica sighed a little impatient sigh, and 
pulling doAvn a rich plait of her hair, dreAv its 
glossy length languidly across and across her lips. 

“Magnificent!” said Sir John, softly, after 
contemplating her for some time. 

She looked up inquiringly. 

“Magnificent hair! Quantity, quality, and 
hue, all superb ! I neA'er kneAv but one other 
AA'oman Avith such an abundance of hair as you 
have. And hers Avas blonde, Avhich I don't ad- 
mire.” 

The expression of his admiration had not lost 
its poAver to charm her. Indeed, it may be said 
that to hear her beauty praised by any lips, hoAv- 
ever false and coarse, Avas noAV the one delight 
of her life. That the flattery Avas poisoned she 
kneAv, as the drunkard knoAvs Avhat bane he SAval- 


VERONICA. 


67 


lows in each fieiy draught. But she turned from i 
it no more than he refrains from the fatal wine- 
cup, Her face brightened, and she coquettishly 
released all the coils of her hair with a sudden 
turn of her hand. It fell in plaits, or loose rip- 
pling tresses, all around her. Sir John looked 
on complacently with a sense of ownership. 

“Will you drive this evening?” asked Ve- 
ronica. 

“Drive? I don’t know. Where? There are 
no drives.” 

“ I want to go to Florence.” 

“To Florence!” 

“You know you said I should do so some day. 

I have never seen it. When we passed thi-ough 
from the railway station it was dark. It is so 
dull here. Besides,” she added, as if angry with 
herself for having assumed a pleading tone, ‘ ‘ I 
leant to go.” 

“There can be no necessity, Veronica. The 
servants will procure you any thing you want. ” 

“But I wish to see the city! Why should 
you not come ?” 

“What is the use of making me recapitulate 
my reasons ? I am known there. You would be ex- 
posed to — to — disagreeable rencontres ; in short, 
it is better not to go into Florence at present.” 

He spoke in an imperious tone of masterhood, 
and then sank back on his couch as though the 
discussion were closed. Veronica sat quite still 
for a minute or so. The minute seemed very 
long to her. She was trying to school herself to 
be politic, and to answer calmly. But self-con- 
trol is not to be acquired in an instant. 

Her own impulse of the moment, her own likes 
and dislikes, caprices and whims, had been para- 
mount with Veronica all her life. Now, after 
telling herself sternly that it would not do to be 
hasty, and that every thing depended on her 
power of self-command, she broke out on a sud- 
den with childish vehemence ; declaring that she 
was moped to death ; that she was dull, wretched, 
bored, all day long ; that if there were any rea- 
son for Sir John’s shrinking from being seen in 
Florence it rested with himself to remove that 
reason , that site was sick and weary of the de- 
lays and disappointments ; finally, that she would 
go to the city that evening. 

At first Sir John listened to her petulant, 
broken speech with the detestable enjoyment of 
a cruel school-boy, who watches his newly-caged 
bird fluttering in terror and impotent anger 
against the wires. But some word she said 
touched on a theme which threatened to give 
him trouble. 

That prospect was not amusing. Besides, 
Veronica looked very handsome so long as she 
was merely passionate and angry. But after 
the first outburst symptoms of rising tears be- 
came apparent, and that prospect also was not 
amusing. 

“Good Heavens, Veronica!” exclaimed Sir 
John, “ how can you be such a baby ? Go, go, if 
you like. If you care about it so much, order the 
carriage at any hour you please. Only let me sug- 
gest that it be not before the sun has begun to 
lose some of his power. It will be hot enough in 
any case in those narrow stuffy streets. Ouf!” 

“ And you?” said Veronica, standing looking 
at him irresolutely. 

“ Oh, I shall not go. You can take your maid, 
and Paul will attend you.” 


“I don’t want Paul,” muttered Veronica, but 
in so low and indistinct a tone that Sir John 
might plausibly affect not to hear it if he chose. 
And he did choose. 

‘ ‘ Of course Paul will attend you, ” he repeat- 
ed, quietly. “ You will find Paul indispensable. 
That lout of a Tuscan coachman would get you 
into some scrape, to a certainty.” 

All Sir J ohn Gale’s servants, with the excep- 
tion of Paul and the cook, were Tuscans : not 
town - bred Florentines, but country people. 
Their service was clumsily rendered, but Sir 
John had known what he was about when he 
charged Paul to see that no servant accustomed 
to wait on foreigners, and to flit from house to 
house gossip-laden, was engaged among his do- 
mestics. 

When the carriage was announced there stood 
Paul, bare-headed, to hand “miladi” in. Her 
maid placed herself on the back seat, and Paul 
climbed up to the box beside the coachman. 

“Where to, miladi?” asked Paul, leaning 
down, hat in hand. 

“To Florence. Any where. I don’t know. 
Stay ; I want to buy a — a fan. Drive first to a 
place where they sell fans.” 

The carriage had not gone a quarter of a mile 
down the steep incline that led from Villa Chiari 
— it was down hill thence in every direction — 
when she called to Paul, and bade him make the 
coachman stop. 

“I think,” said she, with a not quite success- 
ful assumption of being an independent agent — 
“I think I will take a drive in the park — the 
Cascine they call it, don’t they ? Go there first. ” 

Paul bent down lower into the carriage, and 
said, in English, “At the hour when we should 
arrive there, miladi, the Cascine would be terri- 
bly unwholesome. Sunset is a bad time, or even 
the hour before sunset. There is a mist. It is 
damp. You get colds — oh, very dangerous colds. 
Does miladi care which fan-shop she goes to ?” 

Veronica drew from her pocket a delicate gold 
watch incrusted with jewels, and looked at it 
with a meditative air while Paul was speaking. 

“ It is later than I thought,” she said, slowly. 
“ Tell the coachman to drive straight into town. 
I must buy my fan by daylight. Never mind 
the Cascine. Go on.” 

She looked very imperial and grand, leaning 
back in the handsome carriage, and folded in a 
soft cloud of black lace. Peasant w'omen passed 
and stared at her. Peasant children shouted. 
Working-men, retuniing from their daily labor, 
shaded their eyes to look at her dashing by. 

Paul sat, square-shouldered and steady, beside 
the coachman. And the pleasure of her weak, 
selfish vanity, and the petty delight of being ad- 
mired and envied by poor ignorant passers was 
dashed with a bitter drop — the consciousness 
that that man was invested with power to con- 
trol her movements, and that, brave it out as she 
might, she was a slave, and Paul her keeper. 


CHAPTER III. 

A COUSIN. 

The carriage bearing Veronica rolled along 
smoothly down a long avenue. It was the road 
leading from an erst grand-ducal villa which 


68 


VERONICA. 


stands on the top of an eminence — scarcely high 
enough to be termed a hill in a country of Ali)S 
and Apennines, but which is of very respectable 
altitude nevertheless, and is called the Poggio 
Imperiale. The avenue is flanked by cypress 
and ilex trees of ancient growth. 

Veronica had heard her mother speak so much 
and so often of Florence that she thought she 
knew it. But coming to view city and suburb 
with her bodily eyes, she found every thing 
strange, foreign, and, on the score of beauty, dis- 
appointing. Later she understood the amazing 
picturesqueness of that storied town, and with 
every glance its attractions grew on her. But 
there are some places — as there is some music, 
and that among the noblest — which do not take 
at once the senses by storm, but need time and 
familiarity to develop their wealth of beauty and 
resource. 

What Veronica saw with her unaccustomed 
eyes was, first the long, dusty, squalid Roman 
road, into which the carriage turned at the foot 
of the avenue ; then the Porta Romana, with its 
huge, yawning archway, through which carts of 
all kinds were struggling ; those coming in hav- 
ing to stop to be examined by the officers of the 
town custom dues, and those going out pushing 
boldly through the gate and grazing wheels 
against the stationary vehicles. 

Every body w^as talking very loudly. The 
few wffio really could by no exercise of ingenuity 
find any more articulate words to say, solaced 
themselves by half-uttered oaths and long-drawn, 
lugubrious howls addressed to the patient, lean 
beasts that drew the carts. 

In odd contrast wdth this nimble energy of 
tongue w^ere the slow and languid movements 
of all concerned. The octroi meii lounged 
against the walls on high, four-legged stools set 
out before a queer little office, very dim and 
dirty, wdth glazed window^s. They had within 
reach long iron rods, with wdiich they probed 
trusses of hay or straw, or which they thrust in 
among bundles of linen or piles of straw-colored 
flasks, or poked down amidst the legs of people 
sitting in country chaises, or under the box-seat 
of hackney-coachmen. And when they had thus 
satisfied themselves that there was no attempt 
being made to defraud the municipality of Flor- 
ence of the tax on food and wine, and whatso- 
ever other articles are subject to duty, they — al- 
Avays Avith ineffable languor — put their hands into 
their pockets again and bade the driver proceed. 
One man especially, with melancholy, dark eyes 
and a sallow face, uttered the permission to pass 
on, “ AA^anti!” in a tone of such profound and 
hopeless dejection, that one might have fancied 
him a guardian of that aAvful portal his great 
tOAvnsman wrote of, rather than a mortal custom- 
house officer at the city gate, and that he Avas 
Avarning the doomed victims : “ Abandon hope, 
all ye Avho enter here !” 

Sir John Gale’s carriage only paused for an 
instant in passing through the Porta Romana. 
The spirited horses chafed at the momentary 
check, and dashed on again rapidly over the re- 
sounding paA’^ement. 

A succession of objects seemed to flit past Ve- 
ronica’s eyes like the swift changes in a dream. 

There w’as a long street paved Avith flat stones, 
fitted into each other angle for angle and point 
for point, like the pieces in a child’s puzzle. 


There w’as in this street no side pavement for 
foot-passengers, and — the street being very full — 
the coachman kept uttering a Avarning cry at in- 
tervals, like a minute-gun.. Indeed, as they ap- 
proached the busier parts of the tOAvn, their pace 
Avas slackened perforce. No vehicle short of the 
car of Juggernaut could have ruthlessly kept up 
a steady progress through such a croAvd. 

There Avere houses of various styles and di- 
mensions on either side of the long street, nearly 
all plastered ; one or tAvo, hoAveA’er, Avith a heaA'y 
cut-stone front to the basement-stoiy. Every 
windoAv had the inevitable green jalousies, and 
nearly every AvindoAv had a group of heads framed 
in it, for it Avas a summer evening, and there 
Avere people taking the air — they called it pigliare 
il fresco, albeit it Avas yet hot enough, and stifling 
in the narroAV Avays of the city ; and there were 
bright bonnets to be criticised, and acquaintances 
to be recognized, and familiar conversations 
touching the privatest family affairs to be held 
in brassy voices, betAveen ladies and gentlemen 
standing in the street, and other ladies and gen- 
tlemen leaning on their elboAvs out of third-floor 
AvindoAvs. And the talkers in the street jJanted 
themseh’es in any spot that came convenient, and 
remained there immoA’able, as regardless of the 
pressing throng of passers-by as a stubborn, 
broad-based stone in a stream is regardless of 
the rushing current. And the passers-by yield- 
ed as the Avater yields, and skirted round these 
obstructive groups, or — if the subject of their 
discourse struck them as peculiarly interesting — 
lingered a Avhile to listen to their talk with a 
graA^e placidity, which might be characterized as 
good-humored, only that that Avord suggests some- 
Avhat of merriment to an English ear, and these 
people Avore feAv smiles on their broAAm faces. 

Then came a vision of an open space, Avith 
houses on the left hand, and on the right a steep 
incline covered with gravel, on the summit of 
Avhich stood a vast palace (its facade seeming, at 
the first glance, someAA'hat Ioav for its AA’idth), 
flanked by open arcades that adA'anced from the 
main body of the building and embraced tAvo 
sides of the graveled space. These arcades AA^ere 
based on titanic blocks of rough stone, and un- 
der the shade of the arches a military band Avas 
making lively music, and a dense mass of citi- 
zens Avith their Avives and families Avas listening 
to it, still with the same nonchalant placidity. 

OiiAvard through a very narroAv street of gloomy, 
froAvning, iron-barred stone palaces ; across a 
quaint bridge Avith shops and houses on it, Avhere 
the gems and gold in the jewelers’ AvindoAvs flashed 
brightly beneath the beetle-broAved pent-house 
shutters ; past an open arch making a gap in the 
line of buildings on the bridge, through Avhich 
AA'as seen a glimpse of gold and purple hills SAA'iin- 
ming in a haze of evening sunshine; along a 
stone quay AAnth tall handsome houses on one 
hand, and on the other a deep AA’ide trench more 
than half full of broAvnish sand, and Avith pools 
of Avater here and there, and a shrunk middle 
stream sluggishly craAvling tOAvard the sea, Avhich 
stream Avas the classic Arno, nothing less ! — past 
the end of another bridge, Avide and handsome, 
at AA’hose foot a dense croAA^d Avas assembled in a 
small piazzetta : some standing, some sitting on 
stone benches, some perched on the parapet over- 
hanging the river, all Avatching the passers-by on 
foot or in vehicles ; doAAn another street which 


VERONICA. 


C9 


widened out into a considerable space and then 
contracted again, and where a tall column stood, 
and hackney-coaches were ranged hard by, and 
a vast old medieval palace — more like a fortress 
than a palace — heaved its bulk above the narrow 
ways behind and about it, like a giant raising his 
head and shoulders out of a pressing throng to 
breathe ; and where a few elegantly-dressed gen- 
tlemen (rather attenuated about the legs, and 
unwholesome about the skin, and with a general 
vague air pervading them — though some w'ere 
handsome, dark-eyed youngsters, too — of haAung 
not quite enough to eat and considerably too 
much to smoke) were lounging at the door of a 
club-house, utterly unlike any club-house known 
to the dwellers beyond the Straits of Dover, or 
perhaps nearer than that; and at last the car- 
riage drew up suddenly with a mighty clatter at 
the door of a smart shop, all French mirrors and 
gilding, Avhere fans were displayed for sale, and 
Paul descended nimbly, but decorously, from 
the box to hand “ miladi” out. 

All the siglits that she had Seen in her rapid 
drive were vividly impressed on Veronica’s eyes, 
but she had not had time to give herself an ac- 
count of them : to diges them, as it "were, in her 
brain. She felt almost giddy as she alighted and 
entered the shop. But one circumstance had 
not escaped either her observation or her com- 
prehension : the fact, namely, that her beauty 
and elegance had attracted much attention from 
the loungers at the club door. One man es- 
pecially had gazed at her, like one enchanted, as 
her carriage whirled past. 

She was. looking at a bright glittering heap 
of fans on the counter, turning them over with 
a disdainful air, and pushing them away one by 
one with the tips of her gloves, when she became 
aware of a face looking furtively in through the 
spacious pane of the shop window. The face 
disappeared, and its owner w'alked away. Pres- 
ently he repassed, glanced in again (when he did 
so, Veronica’s quick eye recognized him as the 
man who had stared at her so admiringly in the 
street), and finally stopped and addressed Paul, 
w'ho w'as standing in sentimental fashion at the 
shop door. 

To Veronica’s surprise, Paul answered him at 
once, touching his hat respectfully. She hastily 
chose a couple of fans, bade her maid pay for 
them and bring them to the carriage, and went 
to the door, where Paul Avas still so busily con- 
versing with the stranger that he tvas not aAvare 
of her approach until she spoke to him. 

At the sound of her voice he turned hastily, 
and the stranger took off his hat and boAved pro- 
foundly. 

He Avas a AA'ell-looking, slender man, of about 
thirty. He had fine teeth, and bright dark eyes, 
AvhichTatter, hoAvever, seemed to elude yours like 
a picture badly hung, on AA’hich you can. not get a 
good light, shift and strive as you Avill. It Avas 
not that he turned his glance aside either, for he 
seemed to look boldly enough at AvlioeA^er ad- 
dressed him, but the glittering eye could not be 
fathomed. He AA^as prematurely bald about the 
forehead, but the back and sides of his head 
Avere sufficiently Avell coA'ered Avith dark Avaving 
locks, and he Avore a short beard and mustache 
of glossy black. His dress Avas o.f the latest 
fashion, and, although perhaps slightly brighter 
in color than an insular eye Avould deem fitting I 


for masculine attire, Avas Avell chosen and per- 
fectly made. He Avore a glass in his eye, at- 
tached to a short black ribbon. And Avhen he 
bowed the glass fell and dangled across his AA^aist- 
coat. 

“A thousand pardons, Madame,” he said, 
speaking in French, but Avith a strong Italian 
accent; “I formerly had the honor of knoAving 
Monsieur le Baron Gale, and just recognized his 
servant. ” 

Veronica boAved, with an easy hauteur, Avhich 
yet AA’as not calculated to repulse the speaker. 
So at least he thought, for he A^entured to press 
forAvard and ofter the support of his arm to as- 
sist Veronica into her carriage. She touched it 
Avith the tips of her fingers as she got in. Paul 
stood holding the door open Avith a graA'e face. 

“I Avas charmed to find that my good friend 
Gale had returned to Italy,” said the gentleman, 
still standing bareheaded by the side of the car- 
riage after Veronica Avas seated. “And,” he 
added, “under such delightful circumstances. 
Paul tells me that he is in the Villa Chiari. I 
shall do myself the honor— if I may hope for 
your amiable permission — of paying my respects 
to my good Gale, my homage to Madame. ” 

Veronica boAA'ed, smiled veiy slightly, mur- 
mured some inarticulate Avord, and gaA'e the 
signal to drive on, leaving the stranger, hat in 
hand, on the pavement. When she had driA-en 
some distance she asked Paul in English Avho 
that person Avas. 

He Avas the Signor Cesare Barletti, dei Prin- 
cipi Barletti ; not the head of the house ; a 
younger brother. The Barletti AA'ere a Nea- 
politan family. The Prince Cesare had knoAvn 
Sir John at Naples. Oh yes; that Avas quite 
true. And Sir John had liked him to come 
and play piquet or ecarte Avith him Avhen he 
AA'as laid up at his hotel, and could not go out. 
He (Paul) certainly thought that Sir John AA'ould 
like the prince to call and see him ; otherAvise 
Paul would haA’e taken good care not to men- 
tion Sir John’s present address. The Principe 
Cesare de’ Barletti AA’as not a Florentine ; miladi 
understood — did she not? — that it Avas the re- 
neAval of old Florentine “relations” Avhich Sir 
John objected to at present. 

“ Miladi” leaned back Avith an assumption of 
indifference and inattention Avhile Paul spoke. 
But no syllable of Avhat he said AA’as lost upon 
her. 

Barletti! Cesare de’ Barletti! This man, 
then, Avas a cousin of he.r OAvn ! Her mother’s 
father had been dei Principi, of the Princes Bar- 
letti. 

Sir John kneAV and cared nothing about Ve- 
ronica’s mother. He in all probability had never 
heard Mrs. Levincourt’s maiden name. But Ve- 
ronica kneAV it AA'ell, and had nourished a secret 
pride in her Neapolitan ancestry. 

That the man Avho had accosted her Avas her 
cousin did not much matter. But his intention 
of paying a visit to Villa Chiari mattered a great 
deal. It ofiered a hope of change and society. 
She had been a little surprised that Paul should 
have given him the address. But Paul had 
himself explained that. It Avas old Florentine 
acquaintances Avhom Sir John Avished to shun. 
This man being a stranger in Tuscany might 
have the entree to Villa Chiari. Doubtless Paul 
kneAV Avhat he AA’as about. If Sir John kneAV that 


70 


VERONICA. 


Barletti was Veronica’s cousin, would it make 
any difference in his reception of him? She 
mused upon the question until she reached the 
villa. It was quite evening. The sun had set 
behind the hills ; but there was still a bright- 
ness in the sky. “Miladi” hastened to her 
own room to dress for dinner. She made a 
gorgeous toilet every day, finding a great deal 
of real pleasure in her fine clothes. The sus- 
picion that this was a pleasure which some oth- 
er person in her presence genuinely disdained, 
would have much imbittered her delight in the 
rich silks and gay jewels and fine lace. But 
such a mortification never befell her in Sir John 
Gale’s company. 

At dinner they talked of Cesare de’ Barletti. 

“ Paul has told you, of course,” said Veronica, 
“about the man who spoke to him, and after- 
ward to me ?” 

“Oh yes — Barletti. Ah — yes; I knew him 
at Naples. Wonder what brings him here!” 

“ He said he would call.” 

“ Not a doubt of it ! He likes a good dinner 
and good wine ; and he never gets either at his 
o\vn expense.” 

‘ ‘ I should suppose that the Principe de’ Bar- 
letti does not need to come to his acquaintances 
for food !” said Veronica. 

Sir J ohn burst into a grating laugh. ‘ ‘ Bah !” 
he cried, “you are impayable with your Principe 
de’ Barletti! The real prince and head of the 
family is poor enough. He lives nine months of 
every year in the third-floor of a mangy palazzo 
at Torre del Greco, in order to scrape together 
enough to spend the other three months in Paris. 
But this fellow is only dei principi — a younger 
son of a younger son. He has twopence a year, 
which he spends on shiny boots (I dare say he 
blacks them himself) and cheap gloves. But he 
plays a good game of piquet; and I found it 
w'orth while to let him come nearly every even- 
ing when I was once laid by the heels — or the 
toe, rather, for I got a confounded fit of the gout 
— in a beastly hotel at Naples. Of course he 
was very glad. It paid hhn capitally!” 

Veronica’s temper Avas chafed by this slighting 
mention of a Barletti. It vexed her. She knew 
that Sir John’s coarse insolence was directed 
against this man in utter ignorance of the fact 
that he was in any degree connected with her- 
self. Still it vexed her. But she had no inten- 
tion of incurring the risk of ridicule for the sake 
of championing her newly-found relation. She 
had been considerably elated by the thought of 
being cousin to a prince ; and proportionally de- 
pressed by the discovery that to be dei Principi 
Barletti was no guarantee of important position. 

“Then you mean this man to come here?” 
asked Veronica. 

“ Mean him to come ? Yes ; if he makes him- 
self amusing. If not, I shall give him his conge. ” 

“If you feel that you want amusement, why do 
you not go into Florence sometimes ?” 

“ La bella idea ! Go to Florence for amuse- 
ment in J une ! There’s nobody there ; and if 
there were, it’s much too hot to do any thing. 
Besides — no, no ; Ave must get through the sum- 
mer here as best AA'e can. The dry heat suits me 
rather; especially on this hill, Avhere one gets 
plenty of air, even if it be hot air. In the au- 
tumn and Avinter Ave Avill move south. Mean- 
Avhile if Barletti drops in our AA^ay, so be it.” 


“Nobody in Florence?” replied Veronica, 
Avhose mind had been dAvelling on those Avords. 
“ It seemed to me that there Avere a great many 
carriages — ” 

“You did not go to the Cascine ?” interrupted 
Sir John, quickly. 

“No; I AA'as too late. But I saAv the people 
driAung along the Lung’ Arno.” 

She perfectly understood from Sir John’s man- 
ner that he had gh'en orders to Paul not to take 
her to the Cascine, and that he had felt a mo- 
mentary suspicion that his orders had been dis- 
obeyed. The question presented itself to her 
mind, AV’hat Avould have been the result if Paul 
had yielded to her desire? But when she re- 
tired to her OAvn apartment — Avhich she did early 
— she lay aAvake for some time, occupying her- 
self exclusively Avith another and very different 
problem, namely, Avhich of her dresses she should 
put on to-morroAv evening, Avhen Cesare de’ Bar- 
letti might be expected to make his appearance 
at Villa Chiari. 


CHAPTER IV. 

IN THE GARDEN. 

“I WAS SO delightfully astonished!” 

“At seeing Paul? He does not usually pro- 
duce ecstasy in the beholder. But ‘ tutti i gusti 
son gusti,’ all tastes are tastes, as they say here. ” 

“Pardon! no: not at the sight of Paul for 
Paul’s sake, but — ” 

“But for mine?” 

“For yours, caro mio. I had never heard 
that you Avere married ; never.” 

“I Avonder if he had?” thought Sir John. 
“ He says it so emphatically, that it is probably 
a lie.” 

“And the sight of miladi positiAxly dazzled 
me ! Wliat eyes ! What a grace ! IIoav beau- 
tiful!” 

“Take another cup of coffee,” said Sir John, 
dryly, interrupting the raptures of his compan- 
ion. And yet the raptures did not altogether 
displease him. 

Sir John Gale and the Principe Cesare de’ 
Barletti Avere sitting together beneath the loggia 
on the Avestern side of the Villa Chiari. The 
setting sun was flushing all the sky before them. 
They looked out on the garden, Avhere, among 
the laurels and acacias, a Avhite figure passed 
and repassed sloAvly. 

The cracked scagliola pavement of the loggia 
Avas coA'ered, Avhere the tAvo men sat, by a thick 
carpet. Foot-stools and cushions Avere there, 
too, in abundance. BetAveen Sir John and his 
guest stood a little marble-topped table bearing 
coffee and Avine. Sir John AA as half reclining in 
an easy-chair, Avith his legs stretched out before 
him, supported by cushions. Barletti sat in a 
rocking-chair, on Avhich he SAVung sloAA’ly back- 
Avard and forAvard. Both men Avere smoking. 

“ The coffee is not bad, eh ?” said Sir John. 

“It is very strong.” 

“Better than the stuff they gwe you at your 
caffe, isn’t it ?” 

‘ ‘ ]Ma, si ! Better, no doubt. But A^eiy strong. 
I should like a little cold AA-ater, if I mav have 
it.” 

Sir John rang a bell that stood on the table. 


VERONICA. 


71 


Before a servant could answer the summons 
Veronica apju'oached. !She had been strolling 
up and down the garden, and had just reached 
the spot in front of the loggia when the bell 
sounded. 

“What do you want?” she asked. 

“The Principe would like some cold water. 
He finds the coffee stronger than he is accus- 
tomed to.” 

There was an indefinable sneer in the tone in 
which Sir John pronounced these words. The 
words were innocent enough. But Veronica 
understood the tone, and it offended her. 

“I dare say he does,” she retorted, “It is 
made to suit our English taste, which likes 
strong flavors — some people would say, coarse 
flavors.” 

“Oh no!” protested Barletti, not having in 
the least understood either the sneer or the re- 
tort ; “ the flavor is very good indeed.” 

“There is some deliciously cold water always 
in the marble basin of the broken fountain yon- 
der,” said Veronica, impulsively. “Let us go 
and get some ! It will be better than any the 
servants will bring.” 

The words were addressed to Cesare de’ Bar- 
letti, who threw away his cigarette — with secret 
reluctance, by-the-wav — and rose to follow “ mi- 
ladi.” 

She had taken up a goblet from the table, 
and was running toward the fountain. 

She had resolved to impress this stranger — al- 
ready appreciative enough of her beauty — with 
her dignity, hauteur, and airs de grande dame. 
And on a sudden behold her skipping through 
the garden like a school-girl ! 

The first plan w'as too slow, and required too 
much phlegm and patience to carry out. Bar- 
letti took her queenly mood very much as a mat- 
ter of course. She could not bear to be ten 
minutes in the society of a stranger without pro- 
ducing an effect. And, moreover, she required 
to see an immediate result. She Avas vain and 
arrogant, but not proud, and not stiq^id ; so that 
she could neither disregard the opinion of the 
most contemptible persons, nor delude herself 
in the teeth of evidence with the dull, comforta- 
ble faith that she was being admired when she 
w,as not. And then came the irresistible crav- 
ing to make a coup — to shine — to dazzle. 

Sir John looked after her in surprised vexa- 
tion. He remembered her having done similar 
things for his behoof ; that had been very nat- 
ural and laudable. But for a beggarly Neapoli- 
tan principino ! Sir John felt himself defraud- 
ed. Had a pet animal approached him at the 
moment he would certainly have kicked it. As 
it was, all he could do to relieve his feelings was 
to swear at the frightened servant who ansAvered 
the bell, for not coming sooner. 

Cesare de’ Barletti Avondered much Avithin 
himself that any human being should moA^e more, 
or more quickly, than Avas absolutely necessary, 
on a hot June eA’ening. He at first attributed 
Veronica’s unexpected proceeding to that inex- 
haustible and incomprehensible cause, British 
eccentricity. 

But Avhen he rejoined her at the edge of the 
broken fountain, another solution presented it- 
self to his mind. She had perhaps seized this 
opportunity of speaking to him out of sight and 
hearing of her husband. Why not ? It Avas im- 


possible that she could care a straAv for that eld- 
erly roue. Very natural to have married him . 
he Avas so rich. Very natural also to admire the 
Principe Cesare de’ Barletti, Avho Avas not eligible 
as a husband — as he very Avell kneAV, and Aery 
candidly acknoAvledged — but Avho Avas decidedly 
well-looking and Avell-born, and would make a 
A'ery jeAvel of caA'alieri serventi I There Avas but 
one circumstance Avhich caused Cesare to hesi- 
tate before accepting this solution as final. Ve- 
ronica Avas an EnglishAvoman ! And really there 
Avas no judging English Avomen by the rules that 
hold good in estimating the motives of the rest 
of the sex ! And Avhosoever should suppose that 
this reflection implied in the Italian’s mind any 
special respect or admiration for EnglisliAvomen 
Avould have been very much mistaken. 

Veronica filled the goblet at the fountain. The 
filling was a sIoav process, inasmuch as the water 
dripped sparely through the crevice before men- 
tioned. While the drops of bright Avater Avere 
falling one by one into the glass, Veronica kept 
her eyes fixed on the lattei', and her attention 
Avas apparently absorbed in AA-atching it. 

“I pray you not to give yourself the trouble 
to do that for me. Signora,” said Barletti, bend - 
ing foiAvard, and offering to take the goblet. 

She Avaved him back Avith her hand, and said, 
“I am Avatching to see hoAV long it takes to fill 
the glass. The drops fall so regularly. Drip, 
drip, drip!” 

He stood and looked at her. Now, at all 
eA'ents, he aa'us not taking her behavior as a 
matter of course. 

As soon as the Avater touched the brim of the 
glass, she relinquished it into Barletti’s hands, 
and Avalked aAvay sloAvly, as though she had lost 
all interest in his further proceedings. The prince 
drank a long draught. He had no idea of not 
enjoying its delicious coolness because he aa'us 
so puzzled by “miladi.” When he had done, 
he Avalked after her and overtook her. 

“ That Avas very fresh and pleasant,” he said. 
“A thousand thanks.” 

“Eh?” 

“ The Avater was so good. A thousand — ’’ 
“Oh!” 

“ Decidedly,” thought Barletti, glancing at 
the beautiful face beside him, “ she is English, 
thoroughly English ! Who is to make out such 
people ?” 

They found, on returning to the house, that 
Sir John had gone in. He Avas in the little 
salon, the seiwants said. Would il Signor Prin- 
cipe join him there ? 

II Signor Principe complied Avith the request. 

Veronica lingered in the loggia and looked out 
OA’er the landscape. The sun had gone down. 
The brief tAvilight was nearly over. The trees 
stood out dark against the back-ground of pure 
sky, pale green near the horizon, and deepening 
tOAvard the zenitli to an intense dark blue. Not 
a leaf stirred in the breathless calm. There Avas 
no moon, but the lieaA-ens seemed to groAv full of 
stars as the daylight faded. They quiA^ered and 
shook Avith a liquid silvery lustre. And below 
on the earth sparkled and danced to and fro a 
thousand golden gleaming specks, threading a 
mazy pattern just above the crests of the ripen- 
ing Avheat. They Avere fire-flies. When one of 
the bright insects chanced to come near Veron- 
ica, she saAv him glow and pale Avitli a palpitating 


VERONICA. 


72 

intermittent flame. And sometimes the whole 
field full of them appeared to shine and fade sim- 
ultaneously, like the successive showers of sparks 
from a smithy fire that respond to the deep breath 
of the laboring bellows. 

It was all as different as possible from Dane- 
shire. And yet Veronica began to think of a 
certain summer night in Shipley long ago, when 
she and Maud were children together, and her 
mother had sat by an open window telling them 
stories of her Italian life. She remembered the 
black old yew-tree, only a little blacker than the 
cloudy, sultry, starless sky. She remembered 
the sound of her mother’s voice, and Maud’s 
dimly-seen little white face, and the touch of 
Maud’s soft, warm, little hand, stroking her 
(Veronica’s) hair in a sort of rhythmic accom- 
paniment to Mrs. Levincourt's narrative. She 
did not think she had been very happy in those 
days. She pitied herself as she recalled some of 
them. Nevertheless their remembrance caused 
a vague yearning in her heart, and filled her eyes 
Avith tears. A conviction, Avhich she tried to ig- 
nore, was in her mind. She did not fight against 
it by self-deluding arguments ; she simply tried 
to avoid acknowledging its existence, as we turn 
away our eyes from a disagreeable object that we 
know to be lying in wait for us on a path where- 
by we must pass. But it was there ; she knew 
it was there. And this conviction was, that she 
had given all and gained nothing — that she had 
been duped and defrauded. 

She did not believe that what she aimed at 
would, if obtained, have turned to dust and 
ashes. And she knew she had not got what 
slie aimed at. The horrible sense of the irrev- 
ocableness of the past came over her. The tears 
brimmed over and ran down her cheeks, and 
they brought no solace. They only humiliated, 
and made her angry. 

A maid, going into one of the upper rooms to 
close the shutters for the night, looked out and 
saw “miladi” leaning, Avith folded arms, against 
a column at the end of the loggia, and apparent- 
ly absorbed in watching the fire-flies. 

It Avas an odd idea to stand there alone, Avhen 
she might chat, and lounge on a sofa, and drink 
iced lemonade in the saloon! But gentlefolks 
Avere odd — especially foreign gentlefolks. And 
Beppina went doAvn to the servants’ quarters, 
not ill-contented with her OAvn lot, and prepared 
to discuss her master and mistress, and to thank 
her stars — with a side glance at Ansano, the 
footman — that she was not tied to that “ vecchio 
brontolone” — that grumbling old felloAV, as she 
irreverently styled Sir John Gale. 

MeanAvhile Veronica, Avho never yielded her- 
self long to any painful mental impression, re- 
turned to the house, and entered the saloon, 
Avhere Sir John and the prince Avere engaged 
over their game at piquet. 

The room Avas brilliantly lighted, and dazzled 
her, coming from Avithout. She felt more angry 
with her tears than ever, on becoming suddenly 
aAvare, as she entered the saloon, that her eye- 
lids Avere SAA'^ollen, and her eyes Aveak, and that 
they must be red and ugly. 

“Oh,” she cried, stopping .short, and clasping 
her hands before her face, ‘ ‘ Avhat a glare ! It 
blinds me !” 

Sir John Avas too intent on his game to regard 
her. Cesare de’ Barletti looked up, and fell in- 


stantly into a trance of admiration — for a costly 
diamcvnd that glittered on Veronica’s slender fin- 
ger. He played a Avrong card (as he afterward 
confessed, an imbecile card !) and Avas A’^anquished. 

Sir John was pleased. So Avas Veronica. The 
former attributed the victory to his own skill, on 
Avhich — as he played very ill — he valued himself. 
The latter had no doubt that her presence had 
agitated de’ Barletti into forgetting his game. 
Barletti himself was Avell satisfied to have put 
his host into good -humor. The stakes for 
which they played Avere very trifling, and he 
thought the small sum he had lost not ill-in- 
vested. 

“ Will you have your revenge, prince ?” asked 
Sir John, throAving himself back in the chair, 
with a complacent smile. 

Barletti shook his head, doubtfully. 

“ Aha I You shoAv the Avliite feather? Pos- 
itively I did not think I should be able to tell 
one card from another, it is so long since I 
have played. You ought to have beaten me, 
you really ought. Ha, ha, ha!” 

Veronica seated herself on a couch near the 
windoAV. Her Avhite dress Avas soft and floAving, 
and her black hair shone in its rich ripples, as 
she leaned her head against the dark veh'et 
couch. Diamonds glittered on her neck and 
arms and hands, and trembled in her ears. 
There Avas no speck of color about her dress, 
and its pure Avhiteness enhanced the rich gloAV 
of her brunette complexion. She still shaded 
her eyes Avith one hand, complaining of the 
light. 

Sir John, having finished his game, AA'as full 
of solicitude for her. Should he have the can- 
dles removed to another part of the room? 
Would she like a screen? Had she caught 
cold, or Avhat Avas it? Her eyes Avere usually 
so strong ! Being noAV the central object of at- 
traction, her spirits rose buoyantly. She co- 
quetted and commanded, and made Sir John 
move and remove the Avax tapers a dozen times 
before their position Avas satisfactory to her. At 
last he got tired, and rang for Paul to carry 
them away and bring a shaded lamp instead. 
Barletti looked on admiringly, and Avhen, on 
the lamp being carried in, there appeared in its 
Avake a tray Avith galantine, and chicken, and 
Avine, and SAA^eets (these English are such eat- 
ers!), his spirits rose too, and they AA'ere all 
three quite brilliant over the little impromptu 
supper. The conA-ersation Avas carried on in 
French, Sir John not being able to speak Ital- 
ian fluently. But suddenly Veronica addressed 
Barletti in Italian, and intensely enjoyed his ad- 
miring sui*prise at the purity of her accent. 

“ Hoav admirably miladi speaks Italian!” he 
exclaimed, Avith enthusiasm. 

“ My mother Avas an Italian,” said Veronica. 

“Was she?” asked Sir John, carelessly. 
“ Tiens ! I never kneAV that. C)r — stay — oh 
yes, to be sure! I think I remember hearing it 
mentioned.” 

“Hoav distrait you are to-night!” said Ve- 
ronica, Avith an assumption of tolerant good- 
humor. 

Cesare Barletti took aAvay in his brain three 
themes on Avhich his thoughts, passions, and 
prejudices made endless variations, as he droA'e 
doAA’u the Avenue of the Poggio Imperiale. The 
first Avas : It is odd that a man should not knoAv 


VERONICA. 


73 


or remember who his wife’s mother was ! The 
second was : Miladi wanted to make it appear 
that Gale was speaking in preoccupation, or ab- 
sence of mind; now, Gale is never “distrait;” 
it is not in his character. The third was ; 
That handsome creature is not an Englishwo- 
man, puro sangue ! The fact of her having had 
an I alian mother brings her more into the cate- 
gory of human beings whose manners and de- 
velopment I understand. I wonder whether 
she was offended with me because I did not 
fall at her feet when we were in the garden to- 
gether, or, at least, make some preparations 
for a future prostration of myself at her shrine ^ 
On this last theme the variations were brill- 
iant and inexhaustible. 


CHAPTER V. 

A SHADOW ACROSS THE SUNSHINE. 

The summer passed away monotonously at 
Villa Chiari. The heat increased steadily, 
reached a climax, and then began as steadily 
to abate. All through the blazing months Sir 
John remained at the villa. The house basked 
in the glare of the long day with closed blinds, 
like a living thing asleep in the suifshine. Then, 
toward evening, doors and windows were thrown 
open, and figures were seen seated beneath the 
loggia, or pacing the shadiest garden w'alks, and 
the sound of footsteps echoed on the flagged 
court-yard. 

As the days and weeks and months went by, 
and brought no tidings from Maud or the vicar, 
Veronica grew restlessly discontented. Eor some 
time angw’ supported her spirits. But by degrees 
she became tormented by apprehensions for her 
father’s health. The apprehensions were only 
momentary, but they returned oftener and oft- 
ener. She debated the possibility that none of 
her letters had been received, and twisted the 
matter this way and that way in her mind. 

Once she spoke to Sir John on the subject. 

It was after a fit of depression and tears, and 
she was unable to suffer alone. She felt im- 
pelled to make him share her pain. 

“I do wonder how papa is!” she said, unex- 
pectedly, as they were sitting alone together in 
the twilight. 

Sir John made no answer, but turned un*easi- 
ly in his chair. 

“I do wonder. I want to know. I viust 
know ! ” 

“What is, the meaning of this sudden anx- 
iety ?” 

“It is not sudden. Because I have kept it to 
myself so long, you can not understand that I 
have been suffering all this time !” 

Veronica really thought for the moment that 
she had been generously sparing him. She knew 
herself to have been unhappy at intervals, and 
omitted to observe that the first moment she had 
felt the desire to speak of her unhappiness to Sir 
John, she had yielded to it without a thought of 
restraining herself for his sake. 

“Well, what can I do ? Can I help it if they 
take no notice of you ? Besides, what is there 
to be anxious about? No news is good news.” 

“I wrote to Maud. I did think she would 
have answered me ! ” 


“Bah! You are infatuated with that girl. 
I wonder that a person of your intellect should 
be so taken in by her missish airs.” 

“ You know nothing about Maud !” cried Ve- 
ronica, quickly. “You can not understand her 
one bit.” 

“Neither, it seems, can you,” retorted Sir 
John. Praise of Maud always displeased him. 
Veronica’s reverence and admiration for her ir- 
ritated him peculiarly. 

Veronica started up with a little childish ex- 
clamation of impatience, and walked to the win- 
dow. 

“I must know how papa is!” she said. Her 
voice was changed now. There were certain 
deep tones in it which the mention of Maud 
alone called forth. 

Her pettishness disturbed Sir J ohn much less 
than her earnestness. 

“Amor mio,” he said, soothingly, “rest as- 
sured that if any evil had happened to your fa- 
ther, or if any evil threatened him even, you 
would not fail to hear of it. There are plenty 
of kind, pious people in that Arcadian village 
who would cheerfully take on themselves the 
duty of imparting any thing disagreeable.” 

She was willing to be put on good terms with 
herself at any body’s expense — save Maud’s — 
and she smiled contemptuously at the recollec- 
tion of the Shipley people. 

“ Can’t you fancy their gloating over such a 
chance of punishing you for having had the cour- 
age to escape from among them?” 

“II Principe Cesare de’ Barletti,” announced 
a servant at this moment, and the tete-a-tete in- 
terview was at an end. 

The prince was a constant, and nearly the 
only, visitor at Villa Chiari throughout the sum- 
mer. One or two other men came occasionally ; 
a stray attache, left behind in solitary responsi- 
bility during the absence of his chief, and be- 
wailing his fate; a belated Prussian grandee, 
passing through on his w'ay from the sea-baths 
at Leghorn to the northern side of the Alps. 
No English came, and no ladies. 

Early in September people began to return to 
Florence. Veronica made various indirect at- 
teihpts to see and to be seen by such of the fash- 
ionable world as were already to be found driv- 
ing in the Cascine toward the sunset hour, and 
inhaling the evening miasma heroically. But 
Sir John opposed her desire in this particular. 
And had it not been for a hope which never 
abandoned her altogether (though it flickered 
low at times), and for Prince Cesare de’ Barlet- 
ti, she would, she told herself, have found the 
ennui of her secluded life intolerable. 

Sir John encouraged Barletti to come. If he 
had not desired Barletti’s presence at the villa. 
Sir John would unquestionably have been re- 
strained by no delicacy from making his senti- 
ments manifest. 

There were several causes which made Sir 
John willing to receive Barletti. The first was, 
that the Neapolitan amused him, played picquet 
fairly well (in truth, he could play much better 
than his host, but had tact and temper enough 
never to hint at the fact), and brought up from 
the city little gossiping stories which Sir John 
relished. The second was, that Veronica was 
either pleasantly gay and good-tempered under 
the excitement of the stranger’s presence, or, if 


74 


VERONICA. 


she were othenvise, vented the haughty self-as- 
serting humor of the hour on Barletti, whom she 
treated at times with absolute -insolence. Both 
these moods of hers were agreeable to Sir John : 
the latter especially so. Then there was the cir- 
cumstance that Barletti, with all his poverty and 
pliancy, was undoubtedly the scion of an illustri- 
ous race. Now Sir John was not the scion of 
an illustrious race. He would not have openly 
admitted the fact, but he knew it. And it was 
ineffably soothing to any irritating doubts which 
he might occasionally entertain as to his own im- 
portance in the world, and as to the supremacy 
of wealth, to contemplate a penniless prince flat- 
tering him for a dinner. 

As we are all apt to believe what we wish. 
Sir John rather overestimated the attractions 
of his dinners, and the impression that his riches 
made on Barletti. 

Early in October Sir John announced his in- 
tention of going to Naples for the winter. Ve- 
ronica was genuinely delighted at the news. 
But, with a petty perversity which she some- 
times indulged in toward Sir John, she received 
it very coldly. He had made her summer pass 
in inexpressible boredom ; ?Lnd she was resolved 
not to gratify him by any too great readiness to be 
amused, the moment it suited him to amuse her. 

“We shall be able to have a little gayety and 
society in Naples,” said Sir John. “You de- 
serve some compensation, poverina, for the dull- 
ness of the summer.” 

This provoked Veronica, and she answered, 
without deigning to turn her eyes toward him : 
“I doubt the power of Naples to give me com- 
pensation.” 

Sir John happened to be in a good temper. 
His dinner had been varied, savory, and digest- 
ible — three conditions not often combined — and 
he humored her with an exasperating ostentation 
of forbearance. 

“ Mechante ! Hid you in truth find the sum- 
mer spent alone with me so dull?” 

“Very!” 

“ Ha ! I wonder, then, that you do not show 
more pleasure at the prospect of a change.” 

“ I see no prospect of a change.” 

The words were barely uttered before she re- 
pented them. Sir John’s good temper, too rough- 
ly strained, had snapped. It was at all times 
brittle and untrustworthy. 

He growled out an inarticulate oath. It was 
not the first she had heard from his lips ad- 
dressed to herself. 

“What a fool I am ?” she thought ; “I never 
take advantage of his good moods. Oh, if I 
could but command myself!” 

The truth was, that his “ good moods” were 
almost the only moments in Avhich she was not 
afraid of him. And the moments in which she 
was not afraid of him tempted her to revenge 
herself for her subjection at most other times. 
There were other moments when, being roused 
to passionate anger, she lost fear and prudence. 
But such moments were still rare in her inter- 
course with the man whom she had made the 
master of her fate. 

She came and knelt beside him, resting her 
hand on his as it hung over the cushioned arm 
of his chair. 

“What will you do for me at Naples?” she 
asked, coaxingly. 


He was about to answer — not, as it seemed by 
his frowning brow and sneering smile, very gra- 
ciously — when his face changed, he made a 
strange inarticulate sound, and leaned back, 
gasping, in his chair. 

Veronica flew to the bell to summon assist- 
ance, then she bathed his forehead with some 
perfume from a bottle that stood near at hand, 
and fanned him with her handkerchief. 

“ What is it ? What is the matter ?” she kept 
asking, wildly. She reiterated her questions 
when Paul came into the room. 

Paul wasted no time in reassuring her. With 
a swiftness very surprising and unexpected in 
one whose movements were habitually so delib- 
erate, he loosened his master’s cravat. Then he 
ran to Sir John’s bedroom and returned with a 
traveling flask, from which he poured a few drops 
of brandv down his master’s throat. 

When he had done so, he answered Veronica 
as calmly as though she had that instant put 
some ordinary question to him. 

“ A faintness, miladi. He will be better now. 
It is passing.” 

Veronica stood by, scared and trembling. 
Paul fetched some cold water, and threw it 
sharply on his master’s cheeks and forehead. 

“Shall I not call some of the other servants ?” 
said Veronica, clasping and unclasping her hands 
nervously. “ Some one must be sent for a doc- 
tor.” 

“Better not, just yet. We shall hear what 
he says. He is coming to himself.” 

Sir John did revive. Some semblance of life 
returned to his face, which had grown strangely 
livid. 

His eyes fell on Veronica, and he turned them 
away with a look of impatience. 

“What is it?” she cried, bending over him. 
“ Can you not speak to me ?” 

Sir John feebly tried to raise his handkerchief 
to his mouth, and failed. He looked appealing- 
ly at Paul, who immediately wiped the water from 
his master’s face, in a steady matter-of-course 
way. Still Sir J ohn did not speak. 

Paul watched him intently ; and at last said 
to Veronica : “ You had better go away, miladi. 
I shall call Ansano by-and-by, and help Sir John 
to his room. He Avill lie down and repose for 
an hour or so, and then he will be quite well 
again. The heat made him faint. ” 

Dflring this speech Paul kept his eyes fixed 
on his master’s face, and seemed to read in it 
approval and confirmation of his words ; for he 
added, almost instantly: “ Yes, yes; that is it. 
The heat made him faint. It is nothing ; and 
you had better go away, miladi.” 

Veronica obeyed in bewilderment. She was 
glad to escape from the room ; and yet she some- 
what resented being sent away. 

Slie was Avalking quickly along the corridor 
that led to her own room, when she heard a 
voice close behind her: “Miladi!” 

Her heart leaped at the suddenness of the 
sound, and she turned round in terror. It was 
Paul. 

“ Pardon, miladi. I fear I startled you. The 
matting is so soft, it deadens footsteps. I only 
wanted to say that Sir John much wishes that 
the other domestics should not be told of his lit- 
tle indisposition. He dislikes a fuss, he says, 
miladi.” 


VERONICA. 


75 


“Oh! he has spoken to vou, then! How is 
he?” 

“ Sir John is much better, miladi. The heat 
made him faint. It is nothing. ” 

Veronica sat down in her boudoir, and tried 
to think steadily of what had just happened. 
She did not believe that it had been a mere 
fainting fit. There had been a strange look in 
Sir John’s face, unlike any thing she had ever 
seen before. Was he very ill? Was he going 
to die ? 

She rose and moved restlessly about the room. 
Then she stopped suddenly, and reflected that 
Paul had shown no apprehension. Paul had 
even recommended that no doctor should be sent 
for. Paul knew Sir John well. He must knoAV 
whether there were danger or not ! 

If — oh, if Sir John were going to die ! 

Her knees shook under her, and she threw 
herself on to a sofa. She lay there, stretched at 
full length, with her face buried in the cushions ; 
her hair pushed aside, and her hands covering 
her ears, as though to shut out some terrible 
sound, for a long time. 

Once the shutting of a heavy door echoed 
through the house, and for many minutes after 
the last reverberation had died away her heart 
beat with dreadful rapidity, and she waited in 
the tremor of suspense and fear, expecting to be 
summoned by Paul’s voice. No one came. The 
afternoon was waning, and at last she heard one 
of the women-servants singing a Tuscan love- 
song, as she moved about the house at her work. 
That was a reassuring sound. Veronica sat up, 
feeling dizzy and half blind as she faced the 
light. There were no tears on her fiice, but it 
was deadly pale, except one crimson streak, 
where she had pressed her cheek against the 
cushion. Her first act was to lock the door 
which communicated with the corridor. There 
was another door in the boudoir leading to her 
bedchamber, to which there was no other ac- 
cess. Then she went to the looking-glass and 
contemplated herself. 

“What a ghost I look!” she thought, “and 
how I have been tormenting myself! And per- 
haps for nothing, after all !” 

•She hesitated for a moment, but finally took a 
book from the table, unlocked the door of the 
boudoir, rang the bell, and returned to the sofa. 

“ Miladi rang?” said her maid, coming to the 
door. Veronica had taught all the servants to 
give her that title. 

“ Yes. What o’clock is it? I shall not dress 
for dinner. I fell asleep over my book, and 
have made my head ache. Get me some eau 
.de cologne. Put on my peignoir, and shut out 
that glare. How red the sunset is ! You must 
brush my hair in the dark as well as you can. 
I can not bear the light.” 

It was not dark when the maid had closed 
the persiennes, but it was dim. Veronica’s 
white wrapper gleamed in the twilight. The 
maid stood patiently brushing out her mistress’s 
thick tresses in silence. 

“Did you ever faint, Beppina?” asked her 
mistress. 

“Faint? No, miladi.” 

“You have seen people in fainting fits, per- 
haps ?” 

“ Yes ; 1 saw a girl once, who was in a dead 
swoon.” 


“There is no danger in them, of course?” 

“Who knows!” answered Beppina, with an 
expressive shrug. • 

“ What made the girl you saw faint ?” 

“Hunger, miladi.” 

“ Hunger!” 

“Yes. Her damo* had been a Garibaldino, 
and he got wounded in the wars ; and when he 
came back to Florence, weak and sickly, he 
could get no work, and his people were too poor 
to help him, so Gigia — she was a dress-maker’s 
apprentice — kept him, and gave him nearly all 
her food. And one day, when she was going to 
her work, she tunied giddy, and fell down in 
the street, and they took her to a hospital, and 
the doctor said she had not had enough to eat ; 
and that that was all that was the matter with her. ” 

“How dreadful! It must be awful to be so 
poor ! ” 

“Eh, che vuole ? She couldn’t have loved 
him more if she had been rich ! And she saved 
his life, and that was a consolazione di Dio.” 

“Sir John’s love, miladi, and Avill you excuse 
him from coming into the dining-room ? He 
will have the honor of joining you in the evening 
afterward.” 

Paul said these Avords from the boudoir, hold- 
ing the door that communicated Avith the bed- 
room in his hand. 

“ IIoAv is Sir John?” asked Veronica, in En- 
glish. 

“Sir John has reposed, miladi, and is quite 
Avell, only a little firtigued Avith the heat.” 

“I shall not come doAvn to dinner. Tell them 
to serve it in the little blue room next my bou- 
doir. ” 

“ Yes, miladi. Then I shall tell the signor 
principe that miladi does not receive this eA'en- 
ing ?” 

Veronica aa’us emboldened by the fact that, 
Avhile Paul’s face could be seen illumined by the 
setting sun, Avhose light streamed into the bou- 
doir, her OAvn face Avas in shadow. She had 
sometimes been vexed Avith herself for being in 
a kind of aAve under Paul’s grave glance, and 
for having alloAved more than one caprice and 
manifestation of Avillfulness to be checked by its 
silent influence. Noav she resolved to consult 
her OAvn Avill and pleasure, and she thrcAv a lit- 
tle superfluous asperity into the voice in Avhich 
she ansAvered : 

“No; certainly not ! I have gh’en you no 
such directions.” 

“ IMiladi Avishes to have the dinner served for 
tivo in the blue room ?” 

“Yes. No! I Avill dine in the dining-sa- 
loon, and — is the prince here ?” 

“The signor principe is under the Avest loggia, 
smoking a cigar.” 

“ Have you mentioned to him that Sir John 
Avas — Avas not Avell ?” 

“Sir John does not choose me to say so, mi- 
ladi.” 

“That Avill do. You Avill have a coA'er laid 
for the prince. I shall try to persuade him to 
stay to amuse and cheer Sir John a little this 
evening. ” 

After all, she had not succeeded in simply is- 
suing her commands Avithout apology or expla- 
nation to Paul. 


* SvA'eet-heart. 


76 


VERONICA. 


The latter bowed and withdrew. 

Veronica waited until his footsteps had died 
away in the corridor ; then she said, putting her 
hand to her forehead with the gesture of one 
struck with a sudden remembrance: “Oh, I 
forgot to give Paul a message for Sir John !” 

“ Shall I go, miladi?” asked Beppina. 

“No, never mind. I will go myself. Give 
me a lace scarf, or something to Avrap over my 
head. That will do. Lay out a dinner dress — 
any thing light and cool. I shall return in a 
few niinutes.” 

Veronica passed through her boudoir and de- 
scended the staircase leading to Sir John’s apart- 
ments, which were on the ground-floor. Ar- 
rived at the basement story, however, she en- 
tered one of the long suit of reception-rooms 
which occupied the Avhole west side of the villa ; 
opened a glass door, and stepped out into the 
loggia. Cesare de’ Barletti was smoking in the 
loggia, as Paul had said. As soon as he per- 
ceived Veronica, he threw away his cigar and 
advanced toward her, hat in hand. 

- - o 

CHAPTER VI. 

LOXELY. 

The prince was a little near-sighted, and not 
deeming it good-manners to use the glass that 
dangled by the black ribbon OA'er his waistcoat, 
when he found himself face to face with “miladi, ” 
he had approached to within a short distance of 
her before he became aAvare of the agitated ex- 
pression of her face, and the unusual careless- 
ness of her toilet. 

The instinct of coquetry would haA*e prevented 
Veronica from presenting herself before Barletti 
in any unbecoming attire. But if she had given 
the matter her most serious consideration she 
could have found none better calculated to set 
off her striking beauty than that which she now 
wore. A long white wrapper fell to her feet. 
She had covered her head with the voluminous 
folds of a white lace shawl, one end of which was 
thrown across her breast and fell over her shoul- 
der; and beneath the delicate snowy lace her 
long black hair streamed rippling to her waist. 

“Oh, prince, there you are!” said Veronica. 
“Paul told me you were in the AA^est loggia, and 
I ran doAvn to catch you before I dressed for din- 
ner. ” 

The words Avere flattering, inasmuch as they 
implied great eagerness on the lady’s part to see 
him. But he must have been a fatuously A’ain 
man Avho could have looked in Veronica’s face 
as she spoke, and have supposed her to be think- 
ing of paying him compliments. 

Barletti bowed, and stood aAA%aiting AAdiat more 
she had to say. 

“ Have you seen Paul?” 

“Yes, signora. I saAv him as I came in, but 
I did not speak to him.” 

“Then you do not knoAv that Sir John has 
been, and still is, ill ?” 

“Dio buono! 111? No. I knoAv nothing. 
What is the matter Avith ce bon Gale ?” 

“ I hope it is nothing serious ; but I can not 
tell. I am uneasy about him; very uneasy.” 

Barletti did not believe that miladi could be 
suffering any acute anxiety on the score of her 


lord’s health. And he Avould haA'e considered it 
a priori very unlikely that she should so suffer. 
But he thought it highly proper and becoming 
that she should assume anxiety. A frank shoAV 
of indifference Avould have disgusted him. 

“Oh, you must not alarm yourself, cara sig- 
nora,” he said, soothingly. “What are the 
symptoms ? Hoav long has he been ill ? I Avon- 
der that Paul said nothing to me!” 

Veronica hurriedly described the singular 
SAvoon or trance into Avhich Sir John had fallen. 
“ He says the heat made him faint,” she added ; 
“but — ” And she shook her head, doubtfully. 

“Really it is not unlikely,” said Barletti. 
“It may haA'e been a giramento di capo — a 
mere SAvimming of the head. Such things are 
not uncommon, and il nostro caro Gale is not 
A'ery strong. Pray tell me if there is any thing 
I can do for you in Florence. I shall, of course, 
go back at once. I could not think of intruding 
on you under the circumstances.” 

“No, no, no! That is just the A’ery thing I 
hastened doAvn to say. You must remain and 
dine here, and stay all the evening until Sir John 
retires. ” 

“But — would he not prefer — ” began Bar- 
letti in some astonishment. Veronica internipt- 
ed him, speaking very fast, and in a low tone, 
and glancing round nervously to see that they 
AA’ere not observed. 

“ Yes ; no doubt he Avould prefer that you 
should go aAvay. But I prefer that you should 
stay. I beg you to stay. He has a Avhim to 
disguise that he is ill. He will not have a doc- 
tor. He has giA’en Paul orders to keep it secret 
from the servants. It may be nothing, but I 
am so inexperienced in illness I can not judge. 
I am alone here. I am afraid of — of — of the re- 
sponsibility. You must remain and watch him, 
and let me know Avhat you think. And — listen 
— do not alloAV it to be seen that I have urged you 
to stay ! Do not admit that I have said a word 
to you about his illness. I rely on you, remem- 
ber ! And, above all, say no syllable to Paul. ” 

She turned away, re-entered the saloon by the 
glass door, and ran swiftly and softly up the 
stairs, leaAring Barletti in a condition of consid- 
erable perplexity. 

He remained in the garden Avandering up and 
doAvn until the dinner-bell sounded. Then, as 
he Avas going into the house across the paved 
court-yard, a sen’ant, Avho had been sent to seek 
him, met him and preceded him into the dining- 
saloon. It Avas a vast vaulted hall, AA'hose dreari- 
ness Avas on too great a scale to be much miti- 
gated by such French upholstery as had been 
hastily employed to decorate it for Sir John 
Gale’s use. 

The table was as big as the deck of a small 
3’acht. The AA’ax-lights abundantly set forth on 
a huge black walnut-Avood side-board, and on 
the tall marble mantle-piece, and on the table 
itself, seemed to glimmer Avith hopeless feeble- 
ness, as though they Avere conscious of their in- 
ability to illuminate the vague dimness of the 
space. There Avas a little island of light in the 
centre of the table-cloth, but it seemed onh’’ to 
enhance the surrounding gloom. 

Veronica AA'as already in the dining-hall when 
Barletti entered it. Paul, too, Avas there, of- 
ficiating as butler at the side-board. 

Barletti boAA’ed profoundly', and saluted Ve- 


VERONICA. 


77 


ronica as though he then saw her for the first 
time that evening. 

“ Good - evening, prince,” said she, with a 
careless, haughty bend of the head. 

In her rich evening dress, and with her com- 
posed, disdainful grace, she seemed a very dif- 
ferent woman from her who had spoken to him 
in the loggia half an hour ago. 

A cover was laid for Sir John in his ac- 
customed place. Barletti observed it, and stood 
for a moment after Veronica was seated, as 
though waiting for some one. “And Gale?” 
he said, interrogatively. 

“Oh, Sir John will not dine with us. He 
felt a little tired with the heat this afternoon. 
We shall find him after dinner in the salottino. 
Sit down, prince.” 

“You permit ? I am not de trop ?” 

“ No, no. I am glad of the sight of a human 
face. This hall is the gloomiest, dreariest 
j)lace! I have never quite got over an idea 
that it is haunted, and I find myself sometimes 
making out mysterious shapes in the dark cor- 
ners. One evening in the summer, when the 
windows were wide open, a great bat flew in, 
and almost brushed my face ! Ugh !” 

They ate their dinner under Paul’s grave, im- 
passible eyes, and with Sir John’s empty chair 
between them. 

“Thy master is not really indisposed, friend, 
eh ?” asked the prince of Paul, as the latter was 
serving him with wine. 

“Sir John missed his usual siesta, and was 
tired. He is quite well now. Signor Principe. ” 

“Ah, bravo! It has been a devil of a sum- 
mer. And the heat seems as if it would never 
leave off any more.” 

The dinner seemed to be spun out to an intol- 
erable length. Barletti had a very excellent ap- 
petite, and ate on steadily. Veronica ate but 
little ; but she drank off three glasses of Cham- 
pagne, whereat Barletti, accustomed to the al- 
most ascetic temperance of his own countrywo- 
men in the matter of wine, marveled considera- 
bly. He could not help obsenung, also, that she 
did appear to be really thoughtful and anxious, 
falling every now and then into fits of musing. 
And at this, attributing her careful brow to un- 
easiness regarding her husband, he marveled 
still more. 

When the dessert was put on the table Paul 
prepared to withdraw. Veronica desired him to 
remain : speaking in English, of which language 
Barletti understood very little when he saw it, 
and almost nothing when he heard it. 

“ I must return to Sir John, miladi.” 

“ Then tell Ansano to remain, and as soon as 
Sir John is in the salottino let me know.” 

The other seiwants went away, leaving An- 
sano to hand round the dishes of fruit, which, 
in his zeal, and the elation of being left to his 
own devices free from Paul’s supervision, he did 
with feverish energy, until Veronica put an end 
to his sendee by desiring him to go and stand 
still at the side-board. 

Tlie dining-hall, like all the suit of rooms on 
the west side of the house, had a door commu- 
nicating with the loggia outside. Veronica bade 
Barletti finish his wine at his leisure, and rose 
from her chair, saying that she would go and 
walk in the loggia until Sir John should be 
ready to receive them. 


A request to be permitted to accompany her 
was on Barletti’s lips, but she checked him by a 
look, and went out alone, pacing slowly and reg- 
ularly up and down under the stone arcades. 
The night was dark, and since sunset the air had 
grown cool. Veronica lifted the gauze upper tu- 
nic of her dress, and wrapped her shoulders and 
arms in it. As she walked solitaril}'-, a feeling 
of intense loneliness came upon her, such as she 
had never experienced in her life. 

Outside, in the darkness, she looked in at the 
lighted hall each time she passed the glass door. 
She saw tlie brightness of the table, glittering 
with glass and silver, and adorned with flowers. 
She saw Barletti seated there. His face was to- 
ward the window. The light fell on his bald 
forehead and dark eyes, and mellowed the tint 
of his pale skin. He looked like a portrait by 
Vandyck. She regarded all this with an inex- 
pressible sensation of strangeness. It seemed to 
her that she was looking on the room and on 
the man for the first time. It seemed to her 
that she had no part in any thing within those 
walls. No one could see her out there in the 
darkness. And to look on even the most famil- 
iar face, being one’s self unseen, gives it an un- 
familiar aspect. 

The fact of being shut out there alone in the 
darkness, and of looking in upon the lighted 
rooms, produced in her a sense of complete iso- 
lation — isolation of spirit as well as of body. 
What did her existence matter to any one ? If 
she could at that moment transport herself to 
Shipley-in-the-Wold, and peep in at the vicarage 
windows, she would see no void that her absence 
had made. It would all be going on much as 
usual. Her father would be reading by the fire 
— they must have fires now in the evening — and 
Maud would be reading too, or perhaps playing 
softly on the old piano. Or it might be that Mr. 
Blew was there, prosing on in his mild, monot- 
onous voice. And outside the wide flats would 
be looming dreary and vague ; and near Sack’s 
farm the sheep and the white cattle would glim- 
mer, dotted about the pastures fast asleep. She 
could fancy it all! So, thought she, a ghost 
must feel revisiting unperceived the haunts of 
the body. 

The idea of death, thus conjured up, made her 
shiver, and nervously walk faster. How lonely 
she felt ! Hoav lonely — how lonely ! 

Veronica had never in her life comprehended 
what was meant by a “pleasing melancholy.” 
Sadness of any kind was utterly distasteful to 
her, and aroused either a species of impatient 
resentment or a headlong abandonment of her- 
self to despair, which had some anger in it too. 

All at once the windows of the salottino threw 
out rays of brightness into the night. Sir John 
must be there. The rays came through the in- 
terstices of the wooden Venetian blinds. She 
could not look into the salottino as she could 
into the dining-hall, where the shutters were left 
open. She felt a sudden yearning for light, and 
shelter, and companionship. It was too intoler- 
able being out there alone until her own thoughts 
in the darkness. 

She went into the house through the dining- 
room, where Barletti was still sitting at the ta- 
ble. He had drunk scarcely any wine since Ve- 
ronica left him ; but, to kill the time, he had 
eaten nearly the whole contents of a large glass 


78 


VERONICA. 


dish of sweetmeats, and was beginning to find 
that occupation pall on him when she reappeared. 

Ansano stood sentinel in the back-ground. 
He had not found the half hour a pleasant one 
either. If he might have been permitted to dis- 
tinguish himself by handing to the signor prin- 
cipe every dish on the table in regular sequence, 
he would have been content ; for Ansano, like 
the rest of the servants, was little more than a 
mere rustic, and the delighted pride he felt in 
such professional promotion as was implied in 
being trusted to do any sendee unwatched by 
Paul wore still the gloss of novelty. But to 
stand there at the side-board, still and silent, 
while the other servants were supping socially to- 
gether, was a severe trial. 

Veronica walked at once through the dining- 
hall to the salottino, and Barletti followed her. 
Sir John was lying on a sofa. A lamp stood on 
a small table near his head, but it was so shaded 
as to throw no light on his face, although it illu- 
minated the gay flowered dressing-gown he wore, 
and his white, wrinkled hands. 

“Here is Prince Cesare de’ Barletti,” said Ve- 
ronica, seating herself on a low chair near the 
sofa. “He wanted to go away when he heard 
that you w'ere not well ; but I made him stay.” 

“ Oh !” said Sir John, in a kind of grunt. 

The greeting was so exceptionally uncourt- 
eous even for Sir John, that Barletti rose up as 
though he were moved by a spring over which 
liis will had no control, and said, “I regret my 
intrusion. If I had supposed for a moment that 
monsieur le baron was seriously ill — ” 

“Who says so? I am not seriously ill!” 
snarled Sir John. 

“ Of course not !” interposed Veronica, quick- 
ly. “I said so. If Sir John had been seriously 
ill, it would be another matter. But his indis- 
position was of the very slightest, and it is now 
quite gone.” 

Either, she thought, he must confess to being 
so indisposed that the presence of a stranger irked 
him, or he must ask Barletti to remain. But 
Sir John did neither. Whichever one of several 
given courses of action was most pleasing to Sir 
John’s state of temper at the moment, he habit- 
ually adopted. Such cobwebs as duty toward, 
or consideration for, others, were entirely pow- 
erless to restrain the passions or caprices of his 
monstrous egotism. 

“Yes,” he said, speaking, as he had spoken 
throughout, in a muffled, strange voice, and ar- 
ticulating indistinctly: “I am quite well, but I 
don’t feel energetic by any means. I shall not 
ask you to stay to-night, prince ; it would only 
bore you.” 

It was almost impossible to resist this hint, 
but Barletti caught a glance from Veronica 
which so plainly begged him to remain, that he 
answered: “Now, my good Gale, I won’t hear 
that. Bore me ! Not at all. I shall stay and 
chat until your bedtime. Or, if you prefer it, 
we’ll have our partie of piquet. Which shall it 
be?” 

Sir John was surprised at this unwonted in- 
sistence. The man had had his dinner; why 
did he wish to stay? That he evidently did 
wish it was, however, no inducement to his host 
to yield. 

“Frankly, my dear friend,” said Sir John, 
making an odd grimace, as though he Jiad tried 


to smile and failed, “I will to-night have nei- 
ther chat nor cards. I decline your company ! 
That is the charm of having an intimate friend. 
I know you won’t be angry if I beg you to leave 
me to myself, or,” he added, slowly turning his 
eyes on Veronica, “to miladi. That is myself; 
it's quite the same thing.” 

But in looking at Veronica he surprised a 
glance of intelligence passing from her eyes to 
Barletti. Sir John could not change the direc- 
tion of his own gaze quickly enough to catch the 
answering look on the prince’s face ; his facial 
muscles appeared not to be under full com- 
mand ; but he saw an expression of irresolution 
and conflict in Barletti’s whole bearing. 

The prince rose and then seated himself again, 
and then again rose with more determination, and 
advanced to the side of the sofa, holding out his 
hand to Sir John, and saying, “ Good-night, then, 
caro Gale. Angry? No; of course I shall not 
be angry!” Then he boAved low to “miladi,” 
and said, in a low tone, and wdth intention, “I 
regret to be banished from our good Gale, mi- 
ladi ; but I am sure he will be quite himself to- 
morrow. You need not — none of us need be 
uneasy about him.” 

“Uneasy!” echoed Sir John. “Que diable, 
Barletti, who is likely to be uneasy ?” 

And as he spoke he looked not at the prince, 
but at Veronica. 

“ Who, indeed ?” said Veronica, returningBar- 
letti’s parting salutation with the stateliest of bows. 
She was reassured at heart. For she argued thus : 
“ If Barletti thought there w'ere any thing serious 
the matter he would not have been restrained by 
any fear of Sir John from giving me a hint of it 
by word or look.” 

And the first faint dawn of a project rose dimly 
in her mind — a project of attaching and binding 
this man to her, so as to secure his assistance 
and protection if — if any thing should happen to 
Sir John. And already in the dawn of her proj- 
ect the prospect of that dread ‘ ‘ something wdiich 
might happen” showed a little less dreadful. 

Meanwhile Sir John lay on the sofa watching 
her from under the shadow that covered his face, 
and thinking of the look he had surprised her giv- 
ing Barletti. The look had put a new idea into 
his mind, a very unpleasant idea, not unpleasant 
merely because, if correct, it would argue some 
of the ideas he had hitherto entertained to have 
been wrong (though that contingency alone was 
disagreeable enough), but because, also, it w'ould 
have the effect of making him uneasy in the fu- 
ture. 

o ‘ 

CHAPTER VII. 

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE CLUB. 

Paul had such a terrible time of it that night 
in undressing Sir John and getting him to bed, 
that when he was alone in his own little room — 
within easy reach of his master’s, and communi- 
cating with it by means of a large bell hanging 
at the head of his bed — he began to go over 
some calculations in his mind, with the half- 
formed intention of retiring from the baronet’s 
sendee with a thousand or so fewer francs than 
the sum he had determined on as the limit of 
his savings. 

Sleep brought counsel to Paul, however, and 


VERONICA. 


79 


he arose in the moniing prepared to go through 
the term of service he had set himself. But 
whether sleep had brought counsel to Sir John 
or not, it is certain that he woke in a humor 
worse, if possible, than that in Avhich he had 
gone to bed. 

He did not feel so much recovered from the 
indisposition of yesterday as he had expected to 
feel. He was extremely feeble, except in tem- 
per ; there, he was as vigorous and ferocious as 
a healthy tiger with a fine appetite and nothing 
to eat. 

Paul attended on him silent and watchful. 

At length he said, with grave deliberation : 
“You must have a physician. Sir John.” 

The reply was a volley of oaths, so fiercely 
uttered that they left the baronet panting and 
glaring breathlessly from his pillow. 

“Excuse the liberty. Sir John,” said Paul, 
with a shade more gravity, but otherwise quite 
unmoved, “but you must have a physician. 
You are a little feverish. It is nothing. A 
little draught will make you quite strong soon 
for your journey. ” 

“A lit-tle draught,” muttered Sir John, try- 
ing to mimic Paul’s accent. “ A little devil !” 

“ In this country fevers go quick. Excuse 
the liberty. Sir John. If you allow, I will go 
for a physician myself. ” 

The man’s steady persistence had some effect 
on his master. Sir John moved his head rest- 
lessly and said, “Go? Where will you go? 
You don’t know any of the doctors here, curse 
them !” 

“ There is a good and esteemed English phy- 
sician, Sir John, lives in — ” 

‘ ‘ Damn the English physician ! You infernal 
idiot, do you think I will have any of them^ jab- 
bering and boasting, and telling in the place 
that they have been attending Sir John Gale? 
Do you think I want a pack of British fools 
rushing up here to stare at me ?” 

“ Bene, bene,” said Paul. In his secret mind 
he had but a poor opinion of the English facul- 
ty, whose views, on the subject of bleeding espe- 
cially, appeared to him to be terribly limited, 
“ Benissimo ! Better so. Sir John. I will fetch 
a most excellent medico. One who will cure you 
immediately — Dr. Maffei. Pie is well known. 
Sir John,” 

‘ ‘ Well known, you fool !” 

“Well known among the Italians, Sir John,” 
added Paul, astutely. “The signori Inglesi 
mostly employ their own physicians.” 

“ Whatever he may say, I shall start for Na- 
ples- on the nineteenth : remember that!” 

In this way Sir John gave a tacit consent to 
the visit of the Italian doctor. 

When that gentleman arrived at Villa Chiari 
he declared that there was no fever about Sir 
John. Paul had been mistaken there. But he 
let slip another ugly word, which Paul, who was 
present during the whole interview (acting as in- 
terpreter occasionally, for Sir John’s Italian and 
the doctor’s French sometimes came-to a cul de 
sac, out of which Paul had to extricate them), 
smothered up as well as he could, in the hope 
that it might not reach Sir John’s ears, 

“I got a fall from my horse last year and 
was badly hurt, and had a long illness in con- 
sequence,” said Sir John, feeling that the phe- 
nomenon of so wealthy and important a person- 


age as himself being reduced to a condition of 
great weakness needed some explanation: “I 
think it shook me more than they thought at the 
time. That’s the only way I can account for 
being in such a devil of a state.” 

“Ah, yes. And then, you see, you are get- 
ting old, and you have probably been rather in- 
temperate in your youth,” answered Dr. Maffei, 
with disconcerting sincerity. 

Sir John began to think he had been wrong 
in not having an English physician, if he must 
have any at all. 

Dr. Maffei prescribed some medicine, and a 
plain, but nourishing diet. 

“I am going to Naples on the nineteenth,” 
said Sir John, brusquely. 

“I do not know. I do not think I should 
advise your making a journey so soon.’’ 

“I shall not trouble you. Sir, for your opin- 
ion on that point. I am going on that day. 
Good-morning !” 

The wild-beast temper had leaped out and 
shown its fangs so suddenly that the doctor’s 
brown smooth-shaven face remained for a few 
seconds absolutely blank with amazement. Then 
he bowed silently ; and, with a certain dignity, 
despite his short, stubby figure and ungraceful 
gait, walked out of the room. 

An amazement of a livelier and more agreea- 
ble nature overspread his countenance when, 
driving down the hill in his fiacre, he inspected 
the bank-note which Paul had handed to him in 
an envelope. Its amount was more than ten 
times what he would have considered a sufficient 
fee from any of his compatriots — it was, indeed, 
ostentatiously excessive. Sir John had some 
vaguely vindictive notion in his head that the 
beggarly Italian would repent not having been 
more civil to a man who could afford to pay 
such a fee. But he was wrong. The doctor 
was pondering upon the extraordinary and ab- 
surd constitution of a universe in which so anom- 
alous a nation as the English was permitted to 
exist. 

It would be difficult to decide whether or not 
the medicines sent by Dr. Maffei did the patient 
any good ; but the fact was, that Sir John did 
not get worse, and was able to keep his resolu- 
tion of going to Naples on the nineteenth of Oc- 
tober. 

Between the day of his tete-a-tete dinner with 
Veronica and that date, Cesare de’ Barletti had 
to undergo many buffetings of fortune. He Avas 
tossed backward and forward from sunshine to 
shade, by the selfish caprice of a little white hand 
— and these little white hands can strike hard 
sometimes. A man who has nothing to do from 
morning to night is glad of a habit which saves 
him the fatigue of deciding how he shall bestOAV 
himself at a given hour. He likes to say, “I 
must be with So-and-so this evening.” It has a 
cheap air of duty. Thus mere habit had caused 
the Neapolitan princeling to be a regular visitor 
to the English baronet in the old days at Naples, 
when the latter was bound to his room by a fit 
of the gout. 

The visits had been begun at the promptings 
of good-nature, combined with a natural taste 
for a superior cuisine. Sir J ohn, at that time, 
employed a A-^ery accomplished cook. 

Then in Florence it must be admitted that 
curiosity had been the chief spur Avhich at first 


80 


VEEONICA. 


induced the prince to undergo the fatigue of sit- 
ting behind a cab-horse, and seeing him strug- 
gle up the steep road to Villa Chiari. He wanted 
to see the interior of the menage, whose master 
and mistress seemed so ill-assorted. But very- 
soon it began to appear to him a necessity of ex- 
istence that he should pay his evening visit to 
the villa. He even found some satisfaction in 
his game of piquet. An Italian is usually amaz- 
ingly patient of boredom : or, it may be, is un- 
conscious of it, Avhich is pleasanter for himself. 
Barletti admired Veronica extremely. And her 
presence was a strong attraction to him. By- 
and-by it began to occur to him that it might be 
worth his while to pay his court to this beautiful 
woman, after a more serious fashion than he had 
at first contemplated. Sir John was failing. He 
might die and leave a rich widow, who would 
become a prey to needy fortune-hunters ; to for- 
tune-hunters who would not have the same -ad- 
vantages to offer in exchange for wealth as could 
be found in an alliance with Cesare dei Principi 
Barletti ! It ivould be a pity to see her sacrificed 
to such men as he had seen and known engaged 
in the qhase after a lyife with money. He made 
no definite plan, but’suffered himself to drift on 
lazily, with just so much intention as sufficed to 
modify his behavior in many subtle, nameless 
ways. But after the incident of Sir John’s in- 
disposition there arose a different feeling in his 
breast toward her. 

Barletti really had a fund of kindliness in him. 
He Avas becoming fond — AAuth a fondness truer 
and more tender than that inspired by the fine 
contrast of diamonds on a satin skin — of this 
girl, so young, so beautiful, and so lonely ! Prom 
the moment Avlien she had appealed to him in 
some sort for adAuce and support, a fibre of 
manhood Avas stirred in him on her behalf. He 
Avould have even made some kind of active sac- 
rifice for her. So, despite Sir John’s irritability 
and insolence, Barletti continued to endure see- 
ing his cab-horse toil up the hill overhanging the 
Ema, eA^ening after eA’-ening. 

And Sir John Gale did not scruple to make 
use of Barletti. He Avould give him little com- 
missions to execute in the city, and expected 
him to read up the neAA's of the day and retail the 
gossip of the hour for his amusement. 

One afternoon, in search of this latter com- 
modity, Barletti Avas standing at the door of the 
club with a knot of others. 

“I remember him at Rome,” said a poi'tly 
man Avith dyed Avhiskers, continuing a desultory 
conversation Avith Barletti. “A red-haired man 
Avho hunted. Quite the type of an Englishman. ” 

“That’s a mistake you all make,” observed a 
languid, spindle-legged young nobleman Avith a 
retreating chin. “I believe there are as many 
red-haired people in Italy as in England.” 

The spindle-legged young nobleman had mar- 
ried an English Avife, and had been in England, 
and spoke with authority. 

“ No, no, it’s the Irish that have red hair ! ” ex- 
claimed a third. “OrtheScotch. I forget Avhich. ’ 

“Zitto!” Avhispered the first portly speaker, 
as a tall old man appeared at the club door, “ the 
captain won’t hear you assert that the Irish have 
red hair!” 

The captain Avas a half-pay officer, Avho play- 
ed an uncommonly good game at billiards. He 
Avas understood to live chiefly by his wits ; but he 


had the entree to several distinguished families 
Avho clung — theoretically, for a more practical 
clinging Avould have involved an amount of in- 
convenience Avhich it Avould have been mere 
Quixotism to encounter — to the old regime ; he 
Avas a zealous Roman Catholic, and, it is scarce- 
ly necessary to add, Avas descended from one of 
the ancient kings of Ireland ! 

“Who has red hair?” asked the captain, in 
Italian flavored with a rich Kerry brogue. 

“We Avere talking about a man I knoAv here, 
un riccone, an immensely rich felloAV,” said Bar- 
letti. 

“Indeed! Who is he?” said the captain, 
affably. He *liad no constitutional prejudice 
against rich felloAvs. 

“ Baron Gale.” 

“Baron what? I neA'er heard the title.” 

“ He is an English baron — !Sir John Gale. I 
knew him in Naples.” 

“Oh, a baronet! Per Bacco!” exclaimed 
the captain, pronouncing the name of the hea- 
then deity precisely like the last syllable of “to- 
bacco,” with a very sharp a. “It isn’t Tallis 
Gale, is it ?” 

“No, no ; John — Sir John Gale.” 

“Ay, ay, that is the baptismal name. But 
he took the name of Gale Avhen he came into a 
fortune, being richer than enough already ; that’s 
al\A"ays the AA-ay. He’s a thin, high-shouldered 
man, Avith sandy hair and black eyes ?” 

“Gia.” 

“ And has a handsome Avife ?” 

“ Bellissima!” 

“ That's the man!” cried the captain, rolling 
the end of his cigar betAveen his lips relishingly. 
“I kneAV him in Ireland in the year ’49. ]\Iy 
lady is a great beauty — was, that is, for she must 
be quite passee by this time — and maiTied him for 
his money. ” 

“Passee!” echoed Barletti, on Avhom that word 
alone, of all that the captain had uttered, had 
made an impression. “Diamine! What do 
you call ‘ passee ?’ She is as fresh as a Hebe, and 
young enough to be his daughter !” 

“Pooh, pooh, my dear friend ! There’s some 
mistake. Lady Tallis Gale must be fifty if she’s 
a day!” 

The by-standers burst into a derisive laugh. 
Barletti had alloAved himself to boast a little of 
his intimacy at Villa Chiari, and had exalted 
“miladi’s” beauty to the skies. It is naturally 
agreeable to find that one’s friend has been ex- 
aggerating the charms of a society from Avhich 
one is one’s self excluded. Barletti had to un- 
dergo a great deal of banter ; and many pleas- 
antries Avere uttered on the humorous topic of 
Lady Gale’s supposed age and infirmities, Avhich 
pleasantries being (like some other things Avhich 
are grateful to the truly genteel palate, as caviare 
and old Stilton) of a someAvhat high flavor, Ave 
may be dispensed from laying before the reader. 

Barletti fumed and protested and gesticulated 
in vain. The joke at his expense was too good 
to be lost. 

“That’s why she never shoAved, then, in the 
Cascine or any where,” said he of the spindle- 
legs, reflectively. That young nobleman Avas 
not. strictly speaking, imaginative, and had tak- 
en little part in the shoAver of jests Avhich had 
been flung at Barletti. “I thought it Avas queer, 
if she Avas so handsome as all that!” 


VERONICA. 


81 


The conception of a strikingly handsome young 
woman who did not want to show herself in the 
Cascine was entirely beyond this young gentle- 
man’s powers of mind. He was as incredulous 
as an African to whom one should describe a 
snow-storm. 

That evening Barletti, seated at the piquet- 
table opposite to Sir .John Gale, caused the latter 
to dash his cards down with an oath, by asking 
him a simple question: “Have you been mar- 
ried twice, caro Gale ?” 

“ What the devil’s that to you. Sir ?” demand- 
ed the baronet, when he had recovered breath 
enough to speak. 

Barletti drew himself up a little. “Pardon, 
monsieur le baron,” said he, “ but I do not quite 
understand that mode of address.” 

At another moment he might have passed over 
the brutal rudeness of his host’s words, but his 
amour propre was still smarting from the jeering 
he had received in the morning. He was there- 
fore ready to resent a small otfense from one 
from whom he had endured greater offenses with 
equanimity. That was not just. But man oft- 
en deals as blindly with his fellows as fortune 
deals with him ; and it is the first comer who re- 
ceives the good or evil he may chance to hold in 
his hand, quite irrespective of the claims of ab- 
stract justice. 

Sir John was not in a mood to take any notice 
of Barletti’s sudden access of dignity. 

“ What put that into your head, pray ?” asked 
Sir John, fiercely. 

“No matter, monsieur le baron; if I could 
have conjectured that the topic was a painful 
one, I Should not have adverted to it. Let us 
say no more.” 

Trash, Sir! I insist upon knowing what 
yoir mean.” 

Barletti had resolved not to be bullied further, 
and had raised his head, confronting Sir John 
with a proud air, when he caught a glimpse 
through the glass door of a graceful figure, with 
long, sweeping skirts, passing slowly along the 
loggia. It was yet early. They had not dined. 
Although the card-table was illumined by a lamp, 
the daylight was not excluded, and the loggia, 
with part of the garden, was distinctly visible 
from the interior of the room. Veronica was 
pacing along with her head bent do\Vn in a pen- 
sive attitude. As she came opposite to the window 
she raised her head for a moment and looked in. 

Sir John had his back to the window; but 
Barletti could see her. She looked full at him, 
and he saw, or seemed to see, something plaint- 
ively appealing in her eyes. It all passed so 
quickly that there appeared to be scarcely any 
])ause between Sir John’s last words and Barlet- 
ti’s reply, uttered coldly, but not angrily. 

“‘Insist,’ caro Gale, is an absurd word to 
use. But if you really -ivish it, I have no objec- 
tion to tell you what made me ask if you had 
been twice married. It is no secret. Your 
name was mentioned at the club to-day, and a 
man declared that he had known miladi years 
ago, and that she was — was -not quite young 
now. I thought it might have been a former 
wife of whom he spoke. He said, by-the-by, 
that you had another name besides Gale — Salli 
— I'alli — I forget it now.” 

Sir John laughed a little grating laugh. 
“Well,” said he, taking up his cards again and 
E 


arranging them in his hand, “ I suppose you can 
judge for yourself about the correctness of your 
friend’s information on one point, at least. IMi- 
ladi would be much obliged to him if she could 
know that he said she was ‘not quite young.’ 
Ha, ha ! I suppose the fellow was trying to 
hoax you. By-the-by, I would advise you, if 
you want to be in miladi’s good books, not to 
tell her that you have been discussing her at the 
club. She’s so devilish proud that she'd never 
forgive you. Allons, let us finish our game.” 

Barletti understood very Avell that he had got 
no answer to his question. But he was too glad 
to have avoided a quarrel with Sir John to care 
about that. And he was more glad than ever 
that he had commanded himself when Veronica 
entered and sat a little behind Sir John’s chair, 
talking little and smiling less, but gentle, ami- 
able, and looking exquisitely beautiful. 

All through dinner her unwonted softness of 
mood continued. She had lately, as has been 
hinted, displayed a good deal of caprice and 
hauteur in her behavior to Barletti : so that her 
mildness was made precious by contrast. It Avas 
the last evening he was to spend at Villa Chiari. 
On the folloAving day Sir John had decided to 
start for Naples. 

“ Good-by, prince,” said Veronica, giving him 
her hand. It was the first time she had ever 
done so ; and Barletti’s heart beat suddenly fast- 
er as he clasped her fingers for a moment in his 
own. 

“We shall see you in the winter?” added 
Veronica. 

“ I hope I shall be able to get away. I came 
here, thinking I should stay perhaps a fortnight, 
on some business for Alberto” (Alberto was his 
elder brother, and the head of the family), “and 
these tiresome lawyers have kept me broiling in 
Eloi’ence throughout the whole summer. Pazi- 
enza ! I do not regret my detention,” he added, 
a little awkwardly, as he bowed once more to 
“ miladi.” 

Then he went away through the garden, past 
the broken fountain, and out at the wide gates. 
There his fiacre was awaiting him. But he told 
the man to drive on slowly, and stay for him at 
the foot of the hill. And after standing for a 
few minutes gazing at the old house, Avhite in the 
moonlight, black in the shadow, he absolutely 
walked more than three-quarters of a mile down 
the hill, under the autumn sky spangled with 
stars ; walked through the thick, soft dust, which 
speedily covered his well-varnished boots with a 
drab-colored coating. And even when he reached 
the foot of the descent he had not yet exhausted 
the excitement which made it irksome for him 
to sit still in a carriage. He paid the coachman 
and dismissed him, and tramped home through 
the streets on foot. 

All which might haA-e proved to a discerning 
eye that Cesare dei Principi Barletti Avas feeling 
poAverful and unwonted emotion. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

CATCHING AT A STRAAV. 

During the first three Aveeks of his stay at 
Naples Sir John Gale appeared to be better than 
he had been for a long time previous. He did 


82 


VERONICA. 


not pay many visits, bat he received a consid- 
erable number of guests twice a week. The 
guests were chiefly gentlemen, but a few ladies 
came also. 

Veronica’s magnificent toilets were criticised 
by the women, and her striking beauty discussed 
by the men. She received homage and flattery 
enough to satisfy even her appetite for such 
tribute. She drove out daily in an elegant equi- 
page. She had servants at her command. Her 
vanity and indolence were ministei'ed to as as- 
siduously as though she had been the most pam- 
pered sultana who ever dyed her fingers with 
henna. But although these things did aflbrd 
her real delight at moments, they utterly failed 
to make her happy. A ceaseless undercurrent 
of anxiety ran through her life. She passed 
hours of suffering from unspeakable apprehen- 
sion of evils to come. 

Her pain of mind spurred her on to pursue 
the one object she had in view, with a courage 
and energy which she wondered at herself. The 
prospect of humiliation, exposure, and contempt, 
in lieu of homage, flattery, and envy, was un- 
' bearable. It roused in her a passion of terror : 
and passion is powerful. 

The strange indisposition which had so sud- 
denly seized Sir John at the Villa Chiari had 
suggested to her the thought that he might die 
suddenly. For a time that anxiety was ap- 
peased by the improvement in his health after 
they had first reached Naples : it was appeased, 
but still it lived. 

Her feelings toward him underwent strange 
revulsions. Sometimes she told herself that she 
hated him with all her heart; at other times 
she clung to him from the sheer necessity of 
having some human creature to cling to. She 
was unable to live solitarily self-sustained, and 
there were moments when she would rather have 
been reviled in anger than made to feel that she 
was an object of indifference. 

But, to Sir John at least, sire was not the 
latter. She occupied more of his thoughts than 
she was aware of. He had not forgotten the 
look of intelligence^ he had seen on its way from 
Veronica’s eyes to Barletti’s. He often thought 
of it : especially as he got better, and had leis- 
ure to direct some of his private meditations to- 
ward other objects than himself. 

When he thought of that look Sir John was 
jealous ; jealous not so much with the jealousy 
of Love as with the jealousy of Power. He 
would have been jealous of Paul if he had sus- 
pected him of diverting any of the attentions due 
to his master into another channel. It was not 
displeasing to Sir John that Barletti should ad- 
mire Veronica. Sir John liked that every thing 
belonging to him should be admired. It amused 
him to see Veronica play off her pretty airs on 
the prince, and treat him with an alternation of 
condescending smiles and stares of cold hauteur. 
But that look he had intercepted implied no 
playing off of pretty airs : it expressed a confi- 
dential understanding, appeal, and reliance. 

Veronica had been so perfectly prudent that it 
was'difflcult for Sir John to conjecture what op- 
portunity there could have been for the establish- 
ment of any thing like a confidence between her 
and Barletti. She had not remained alone with 
him for a moment during dinner, and she had 
been careful to speak to him in Italian, so that 


the servants might understand what was being 
said. All this Sir John well knew, and was 
puzzled. He would have been glad to convince 
himself that he had misinterpreted that fugitive 
glance ; but that could not be. It was such a 
look as Veronica had never given him — Sir John. 
The man who has a secret consciousness that he 
has injured you is, we know, very ready to find 
cause of offense or complaint against you. It 
balances matters somewhat. 

Sir John was always telling himself how gen- 
erous he was to Veronica ; how he humored her 
caprices ; what a dull, wretched, miserable, pov- 
erty-stricken existence it was he had taken her 
from ; and so forth. And he compared the flat- 
tering graciousness of her manner in the old days 
with the languor or violence which made up the 
present time. And then she teased him. She 
importuned him for that which he was unable to 
grant ; and he especially desired to avoid ex- 
plaining the reasons of his inability to grant it. 
It really seemed hard. But now there had aris- 
en a real and important excuse for his resent- 
ment, and lo ! he was inconsistent enough not to 
welcome it ! On the contrary, it absolutely dis- 
turbed him very seriously. 

Had he really cared more for this girl than he 
had fancied ? Was there a fibre of tenderness 
yet lurking in that tough heart? He, at least, 
began to think so, and to pity himself with quite 
a soft sympathy. But that which was sympa- 
thy for himself became very bitter antagonism to 
others. After all, what had he to complain of? 
He did not desire Veronica to be tenderly trust- 
ful and confiding in her manner toward him ! 
He had never longed for a sad, appealing, ques- 
tioning glance from her large, dark eyes ! No ; 
but he none the less resented the bestowal of 
such a look on another. 

He had flattered himself that Veronica enter- 
tained a due contempt for a man so poor as Bar- 
letti. If poverty were not contemptible, why 
then what advantage did he. Sir John Tallis 
Gale, possess over Prince Cesare in the eyes of 
a young lady ? 

That was an unpleasant thought. It came 
unwelcomed, and remained without leave. It 
seemed to Sir John that unpleasant thoughts in- 
creased and multiplied with amazing fecundity. 
One produced another. 

Then, after the first fallacious impi’ovement in 
his health, which had been wrought by change 
of air, his bodily ailments returned upon him. 
And amidst all these troubles there was Veroni- 
ca pursuing her own aim with the blind persist- 
ency of desperation. It had never entered into 
her head that Sir John could be nourishing any 
feeling of jealousy toward Barletti. 

It was not long before the latter followed them 
to Naples, and he was received at Sir John Gale’s 
house there on the same familiar footing as he 
had held at Villa Chiari. Sir John easily fell 
back into his old habit of relying on Barletti for 
his evening’s amusement ; and, besides, he had 
a hungry curiosity to observe his behavior with 
Veronica. He lay on his sofa in a kind of am- 
bush, with his shaded lamp beside him, watch- 
ing the two, evening after evening, and feeding 
high the fire of jealous hatred within his own 
breast. 

It required no great acumen to discover that 
Barletti was becoming daily more enthralled by 


VERONICA. 


Veronica. He would sit and gaze at her like a 
man spell-bound ; and the liglit gallantry, the 
high-flown compliments, the conventional flat- 
tery, had all disappeared from his speech and 
from his manner. He was silent in her pres- 
ence, or, if he spoke, it was seldom to her that 
his words were addressed. He had grown se- 
rious, and almost sad — with the vague sadness 
that belongs to all deep emotion, and that no 
mere butterfly flirtation ever awakens. 

Veronica’s feeling was less easy to read. 

It was not, at all events, deep enough to be 
self-forgetting. Sir John coming to his evening 
watch with a certain preconceived idea, inter- 
preted many chance words and looks into a cor- 
roboration of that idea. Yet even Sir John’s 
suspicion could not blind him to the fact that, 
let Veronica regard Barletti as she might, the 
prince was far from being the all-engrossing ob- 
ject of her life. He well knew Avhat that object 
was. But it infuriated him to think that she 
was possibly urged on to pursue it by the hope 
of one day sharing her success with Barletti. 

Toward Sir John himself Veronica showed a 
gentleness and an assiduity that were seldom in- 
terrupted. Sometimes, however, it did happen 
that her temper, unused to curb or discipline, 
broke forth into violent reproaches and even 
threats, and caused him much annoyance. But 
then, when the burning anger had cooled a lit- 
tle, she would come to him again with a peni- 
tent, tender, earnest pleading for forgiveness 
which would have been infinitely touching to an 
unbiased witness. 

There had been a time when the vehemence 
of an angry woman’s tongue, and the impotent 
rebellion of a womafi’s mortified spirit, would 
have mattered little to him. He -would have op- 
posed passion to passion, violence to violence, 
self-assertion to self-assertion, and would even 
have enjoyed his victory. But it was no longer 
with him as it had been. It Avas still dangerous 
to provoke him too far, and Veronica’s cheeks 
had once been blanched by a torrent of invectives 
launched at her by his quivering lips. Still, such 
an ebullition of passion cost him too dear to be 
indulged in often. He had grown very feeble. 
He felt it, although he would not acknowledge 
it. For some time he made light of his iUness, 
and refused to see a physician. But one day 
Veronica made the alarming discovery that he 
did see one of the leading doctors of the place 
daily. The doctor came in a secret sort of way, 
and Avas admitted to Sir John’s apartment by 
Paul. 

Veronica’s maid (no longer Beppina, but a 
FrenchAvoman, the Tuscan serA^ants had all been 
dismissed on leaving Villa Chiari) found this 
out, and told her mistress : less by Avay of im- 
parting information than as a means of discov- 
ering Avhether Veronica kneAV it, and co-operated 
Avith Sir John in keeping the seiwants ignorant 
of the graA'ity of the case. 

Veronica Avas terrified. She tunied her 
thoughts this Avay and that AA^ay in search of 
help. There was no one Avithin reach, no one 
to be relied on, but Barletti. What better lot 
flay before her than an alliance Avith him ? She 
had learned to like him ; he Avas gentle, and he 
loved her. The latter she could not doubt. 

But yet that Avould aA^ail her little, if she missed 
her aim and failed in her great purpose. Any 


83 

secret communication Avith Barletti risked utter 
ruin and loss of all. 

But on the ev’ening of the day on AA'hich she 
had learned the fact of the doctor’s visits the 
need of sympathy and encouragement became 
paramount, and Avhen Barletti Avas saying “good- 
night” she gave him her hand, and, Avith a Avarn- 
ing pressure, conveyed into his a little folded 
paper Avith these Avords Avritten on it, “To-mor- 
roAv morning at eight o’clock I shall be Avalking 
in the Villa Reale. Be there. I Avish to con- 
sult you.” 

The moment Barletti was gone, A\dth the note 
in his hand, Veronica had a revulsion of feeling. 
She Avould have done any thing to recall it. She 
trembled at the thought of the risk she had run. 
But after a night’s sleep she awoke, still uneasy 
and frightened indeed, but resoRed to meet Bar- 
letti at the hour appointed. 


CHAPTER IX. 

IN THE VILLA KEALE. 

“ Why do you not Avrite to his family?” 

“ He has no liAung relatives ; not one: ” 

“ To his friends ?” - 

“His friends! I do not know any of his 
friends.” 

“ You do not knoAV any of his friends !” 

“I — I — I knoAV a man — a nobleman, in En- 
gland, Avho knew him years ago in Rome. I 
knoAv that Spanish attache, and the Russian Avho 
came to Villa Chiari. I knoAV the Duca di Ter- 
racina here, and his sister-in-laAv, the Avithered 
little Avoman Avith the pearls. These are scarcely 
the sort of friends Avho Avould be likely to afford 
one much comfort.” 

Barletti dreAv near her. 

“I am only such a friend as these,” he said, 
“if one counts by date of acquaintance. And 
yet you speak to me with confidence.” 

Veronica raised her eyes to his sadly as she 
ansAvered : “ Yes ; because I think you care for 
me, and feel for me, and AA'ould, perhaps, do a 
friendly action for my sake, if not for his.” 

She AA’as not Avithout a consciousness of the ef- 
fect she Avas producing on the man beside her, 
nor Avithout an enjoyment of that consciousness. 
But there Avas truth enough in her words, and 
reality enough in her emotion, to send both the 
Avords and the look that accompanied them home 
to Barletti’s heart. 

The exhibition of herself as Beauty in distress, 
to an admiring spectator, had a certain pleasure 
in it that could not be altogether destroyed by 
the serious terrors and troubles that encompassed 
her. 

Barletti glanced around him Avith the habitual 
caution of an Italian (and, be it said, of a lover. 
There is nothing that so speedily forms an ac- 
complished hypocrite in small precautions as a 
clandestine attachment). Seeing no one in the 
long alley of the Villa Reale where they Avere 
pacing side by side, he took Veronica’s hand and 
pressed it to his lips. He AA’as very pale, and 
there Avere tears in his eyes, and his voice was 
unsteady as he said : 

“Ah, Veronica! There is nothing in all the 
AA’orld I AA’ould not do for your sake.” 

“I think you are a true friend.” 


VERONICA. 


81 


“No friend was ever so true, so devoted, as I 
will be if you will trust me.” 

Certainly the words thus written down do not 
display much eloquence on either side. But it 
seemed to both the speakers that they had said a 
great deal, and had been talking for a long time. 

They walked on silently until they came to a 
little pier of masonry, railed in with iron bars, 
and abutting on the sea. They stood side by 
side, leaning over and looking out over the blue 
Mediterranean sparkling in the sunlight. A few 
fishing barks flitted across the horizon. Near at 
hand, a little gayly-painted boat, moored to the 
stone-wall, rocked up and down, and the waters 
made a lapping sound around the keel. 

White garments fluttered on the beach, where 
a party of washer-women had established a dry- 
ing-ground. The women talked and laughed 
loud and volubly, and the breeze carried the 
shrill sounds fitfully hither and thither. No oth- 
er human being was within sight. Behind them 
^verethe green alleys of the Villa Reale; in front, 
the blue sea and the blue sky. 

Veronica and Cesare de’ Barletti stood quite 
silent, she staring straight before her, he with 
his gaze upon her face, and holding her hand in 
his. 

It seemed to him as though it were all a dream. 
She broke the silence. He little guessed how 
far away her thoughts had been from him dur- 
ing all those minutes. He little guessed that 
they had been busy with persons and places he 
had never heard of. Ho had interpreted the 
tender melancholy in her eyes after his own 
fashion. 

Her mind had flown away capriciously to the 
old days at Shipley, and the principal figure in 
her musings was Maud. But she broke the si- 
lence ; and in the instant of opening her lips she 
was back again in the present, and nervously 
alive to every detail of her position. 

“ Do you think you could find out from that 
doctor — I can give you his name — whether Sir 
John’s illness is really of an alarming nature ; 
Avhether he thinks there is immediate danger ?” 

“Physicians will not speak of their patients 
to a stranger,” answered Barletti. He, too, was 
prompt to enter into the prosaic actualities ; but 
he came back to them out of fairy-land with a 
sigh, and a little shock, such as we feel in sleep 
when a long, delicious flight on dream-wings 
ends with a sudden jar, and we alight. 

“But you may not be a stranger to this phy- 
sician! You may know him! Besides, if you 
spoke with him, I think you could easily discover 
what his impression was, without direct ques- 
tioning. It would be such a relief to my mind 
to know.” 

“Why do you not plainly ask Gale?” 

“Oh, I dare not !” 

“You dare not ! Is he harsh ? Is he cruel ? 
I know his temper is furious, but can he be harsh 
to you ? These Englishmen are sometimes very 
brutal.” 

“ When I say I dare not, I mean for fear of 
exciting him too much. You need not alarm 
yourself for me ; nor expend any indignation, on 
that score, upon Sir John.” 

“Oh! Veronica, the thought of your being 
treated with unkindness is insupportable to me. 
Veronica, there can be no tie of affection be- 
tween you and that man. He can not value you. 


he can not understand you. It is horrible to see 
you bound to him ! ” 

Barletti’s horror of a loveless and ill-assorted 
marriage was of very recent date. It was not 
long since he had looked upon the union of the 
rich Sir John Gale with the beautiful Veronica 
as a quite matter-of-course and expedient ar- 
rangement, transacted on fair principles of ex- 
change. 

“You must not speak so to me,” said Veroni- 
ca, in a low voice. 

“Veronica, I have told you that there is no- 
thing in the world I would not do for your sake. 
And it is true. But there are some things be- 
yond my power. One of them is to feign not to 
love you. I would even do that, if you desired 
it, but I can not. You might as well ask me to 
fly to Capri yonder. ” 

The strength of passion brushed away her 
small reserves and affectations like summer gos- 
samer before a great wind. She felt frightened 
at the potency of the spirit she had evoked. She 
desired to be loved, but within a convenient 
measure. She had thought to conjure up a 
sprite to serve her, not to rule her. 

Her instinct taught her to appeal to his com- 
passion. She did it genuinely, for she felt that 
she stood in need of help and forbearance. 

“I trusted you,” she said, brokenly, “and — 
and — you seemed to be true and gentle. ” 

“You will not tell me that you did not know 
I loved you, Veronica! You did know it. Oh, 
mio Dio, how I love thee!” 

“Men are selfish and cruel! There is none 
whom I can trust. You should not have said 
this to me now. You should not !” 

The tears began to roll down her cheeks as 
she spoke. He was penitent when he saw tears, 
but he was perplexed too. She had surely known 
that he was deeply in love with her, and, know- 
ing it, had come voluntarily to claim his help 
and sympathy ! Why, then, did she call it cruel 
and selfish that he should speak to her of his feel- 
ings ? He had no conception of the kind of hope- 
less devotion she wanted, and would have accejDt- 
ed, at any cost of pain to him. 

She would fain have had him behave like Mr. 
Blew, at least for the present, or until the dec- 
laration of his passion should no longer be 
fraught with risk or trouble to herself. But 
Cesare de’ Barletti was not in the least like IMr. 
Blew. And Mr. Blew’s manner of loving — giv- 
ing all and getting nothing — was inconceivable 
to him. And yet, after his manner, he did love 
her with the first dee^i and genuine passion of 
his life. 

‘ ‘ What do you command me to do, Veronica ? 
Tell me. I can not bear to see you shed tears,” 
he said, speaking less vehemently. 

“I can not command you — I do not wish to 
command you. But I ask you, as a friend, to 
ascertain what you can about Sir John’s illness. 
It is not a very great thing to do, perhaps. And 
yet it is more than I have any right to de- 
mand.” 

“I will do it. Tell me, Veronica, do you — 
are you so very anxious about your husband ?” 

“About — Yes.” 

“Don’t frown! Your frown chills me like a 
cloud coming over the sun. Ah, how coldly you 
look ! There is some northern snow in your 
veins, even though you have Italian blood in 


VERONICA. 


85 


you. And why should you be angry? You 
can not love that man ! It is impossible.” 

“ I said nothing of loving.” 

“Tme. But you seem so anxious, so dis- 
tressed — ” 

‘’“Can not you understand how terrible my 
position would be, alone here in a strange coun- 
try, if— if any sudden misfortune should hap- 
pen ?” 

“Alone! You would not be alone. Should 
I not be by your side ? Ah, you speak of trust, 
but you do not really trust me.” 

“I do trust you. My presence here this 
morning is a proof that I trust you. But I 
must go back now. It is getting late. I came 
out quite alone. I did not bring even my maid. ” 

“Oh, stay a while — a little longer! Let me 
look at you, and speak to you yet a few minutes 
longer !” 

“No, no: I must go. I shall be missed. 
Paul is always on the w’atch.” 

“To the devil Avith Paul! You are not in 
fear of your servant ! Will you go ? Well, see 
how I obey you. There, I will not try to detain 
you. But, Veronica, one Avord. When Avill you 
meet me again? I must give you an ansAver, 
you knoAV ; I must tell you if I get any informa- 
tion. Will you come here to-morroAv morning ?” 

Veronica mused a moment. “ Could you not 
contrive to make me understand Avhether the 
doctor’s ansAver is faA'orable or unfavorable, this 
eA'ening Avhen you come to him ? A Avord or a 
look would suffice.” 

“No,” said Barletti, resolutely. “Not a 
glance, not a quiA'er of an eyelash shall you 
haA'e ! I Avill impart no information unless you 
Avill consent to come here for it.” 

“Did I not say men AV'ere all selfish? That 
is your friendship ; that is your devotion !” 

“And you, Veronica, are you not A’ery hard 
Avith me ? What is that I ask ? But to see you 
for ten minutes away from that blighting pres- 
ence ! But to speak one Avord to you of all that 
is in my heart ! ” 

“Yes : you demand the price that pleases you 
for your serAuce !” 

He started back as though she had struck 
him. 

“ Signora, I demand no price. It shall be as 
you choose.” 

She saw he Avas wounded to the quick, and 
Avas eager to soothe him ; although at the same 
time she felt someAvhat indignant at his indigna- 
tion — as a spoiled child, accustomed to give AA'ay 
to its humors, is startled and hurt Avhen its ar- 
rogant pettishness is taken seriously, and resent- 
ed as an injury. 

“Oh, forgh-e me !” she said. “lam A’ery un- 
happy.” 

Those words melted him at once. But he 
had been deeply Avounded. He could under- 
stand tears, caprice, frowns, eA^en fury. But a 
bitter sarcasm, a pitiless probing of motives, AA'as 
infinitely repulsive. It seemed to him so es- 
sentially unAvomanly. A Avoman might die for 
you, if she loved you ; or might kill you if she 
Avere jealous. That AA'as in accordance Avith the 
arrangements of Providence. But to hear a 
satiric sneer from female lips Avas to the Nea- 
politan prince almost as shocking as to have be- 
held a lady Avith a dissecting-knife in her hand, 
and ready to use it. 


“I did not think you could have spoken so 
unkindly, Veronica, to one Avho is devoted to 
you heart and soul, as I am,” he said, reproach- 
fully. But he took her hand again, and kissed 
it. 

“Perhaps,” said Veronica, “it Avill be b^st 
that I should meet you here again, to-morroAv. 
The place is a public promenade. There can 
be no reason Avhy I should not enjoy the sun- 
shine here of a moraing. I Avill come. ” 

“May I not AA^alk Avith you noAV, until you 
are Avithin sight of the Palazzo ?” 

“No. I AA'ill go home alone. It is best so. 
Addio.” 

“ Addio ! I shall see you this evening. But 
it Avill be like looking at the sky from behind 
prison bars. To-morroAv! Until to-morroAV !” 

As Veronica neared the porte cochere of the 
house she li\'ed in, she became aAvare of a step 
close at her heels. She turned her head at the 
sound, and saAV Paul. 

“Good-morning, miladi,” said Paul, AAnth his 
habitual grave and respectful salutation. 

“Where ha\'e you been at this hour?” asked 
Veronica, startled out of her self-command. 

“ Sir John sent me to the Via Toledo, miladi. 
There is no more eau de Cologne in his dressing- 
case, and Sir John desired to have some got at 
once.” 

The Via Toledo Avas far enough from the scene 
of Veronica’s interview Avith Barletti. 

“The sun AA^as so delightfully bright that it 
tempted me out ear]A\ I ha\'e been AA-alking by 
the sea,” said Veronica. 

She could not for her life have resisted the 
temptation to make this sort of excuse for, or 
explanation of, her haAung been out at that un- 
usual hour. And yet she hated herself the in- 
stant the AA'ords Avere said, and sAvept past Paul 
Avith intensified hauteur in her always haughty 
gait. 

“I could not think what had become of ma 
— pardon, I mean of miladi,” said the French 
maid, Avhen Veronica re-entered her chamber. 
“ And miladi dressed herself! Mon Dieu ! ” 

The Abigail cast up hands and eyes at the 
tremendous thought. 

“ I had a caprice to go out by myself. I Avent 
to walk in the sunshine. This January sun is 
like June in England. It Avarms the blood in 
one’s A'eins.” 

“Oh, it is A'ery true, miladi. But it burns 
one’s skin. See how basane all these Neapoli- 
tans are ! But Monsieur Paul also had a fancy 
to go out this morning.” 

“I saAV Paul. His master sent him out, to 
the Via Toledo.” 

“Ah, Sir John sent him ? That is different. 
But he must have made a long detour, for I saAv 
him from mv bedroom AvindoAV coming from the 
Villa Reale. ” 


CHAPTER X. 

ABSIT OMEN. 

Veronica dismissed the Avoman and sat doAvn 
to consider the situation. She AA'as frightened to 
the bottom of her heart. 

Paul coming from the Villa Reale at that hour 
of the morning, and on that special morning, 
Avas alarming. But Paul denying that he had 


8G 


VERONICA. 


been there, and statifig that he had come from 
an opposite quarter, was more alarming still! 
She had been watched — overheard ; to what ex- 
tent? How much had Paul seen and listened 
to? She sat twisting a ring round and round 
on her finger, and pressing it pitilessly into the 
tender flesh until a deep red mark grew beneath 
the gold circlet — she who was usually so sensitive 
to bodily pain, and shrank from it with such ab- 
ject dread ! 

Above the great fear that seemed to fill her 
being, there flashed now and again a recurrent 
sentiment of anger; like w'hite foam surging 
over a dark sea. She w^as angry with Barletti. 
Why had he chosen that time to speak to her so 
unguardedly? True, the appointment to meet 
him was of her making, but she had never con- 
templated having a love-scene. She wanted sym- 
pathy and service ; not a passionate declaration ! 
The passion "was good in so far as it lent zeal to 
the service and fervor to the sympathy. The 
moment it lifted its voice to plead and demand 
on its own account, passion was a hindrance and 
an injury to her. It w'as inopportune. There 
might come a moment when it would be wel- 
come. But now — ! Who could tell the extent 
of the ruin that Barletti’s rashness might bring 
upon her ? She pushed her hair up from her fore- 
head, thrusting her fingers through and through 
the rich rippling locks, and rocked from side to 
side on her chair. 

“What shall I do? what shall I do?” she 
murmured, in a kind of chant over and over 
again, making her voice rise and fall in a regu- 
lar monotonous inflection ; as though she were 
trying to lull her terrors to sleep as a nurse lulls 
a baby, by the mechanical repetition. 

The hours went by. All was quiet in the 
house. Every thing seemed to be going on as 
usual. It was nearly twelve o’clock when Ve- 
ronica looked at her watch. She was a little 
reassured by the calm that reigned — unreason- 
ably reassured, as she told herself; for the 
storm whose breaking she dreaded was not 
likely to burst forth in such sort as to startle 
the whole household. 

Presently her maid tapped at the door, which 
Veronica had fastened on the inside. 

“ Will miladi please to dress for the dejeuner?” 
said the w’oman. She had been scandalized by 
the fact of her mistress having dressed herself, 
and chose to ignore the possibility of her appear- 
ing at breakfast in a toilet achieved without due 
professional assistance. 

Veronica admitted her. 

“I shall not change my dress. Julienne,” she 
said. “But you can throw a wrapper over me 
and brush my hair. I liave a slight headache, 
and that will soothe me.” 

In fact, the regular passage of the skillfully- 
wielded brush through her long hair did soothe 
her. And under its influence she was enabled 
to collect herself and to think a little, instead 
of merely feeling and fearing, as she had done 
hitherto. 

‘ ‘ Is Sir John coming to breakfast ?” she asked, 
after a while. 

“No, madame — miladi ; I believe not. When 
Paul took him his chocolate at nine o’clock he 
said that he was not to be W'aited for at break- 
fast. Ah— h— h !” 

The woman gave a long sigh, so elaborate, and 


so evidently meant to attract attention, that Ve- 
ronica asked, “What is the matter with you. 
Julienne?” 

“ With vie, miladi? Nothing ! But with Sir 
John — all — h — h! ^ 

It seemed to Veronica that her heart stood 
still for a moment, and then w'ent on beating 
again Avith a great leap that sickened her. As 
usual she resented the painful sensation, and re- 
venged herself on the maid. Veronica was a 
perfect conductor of pain. She transmitted it 
instantly to the nearest recipient. 

“ Julienne, you are insupportable ! How dare 
you startle me in that manner? VTiat do you 
mean ? Are you crazy ?” 

“’A thousand pardons, miladi, no; I am 'not 
crazy. But — ” 

Veronica saw the Avoman’s face in the glass. 
It AA-as a little sullen, but through the sullenness 
pierced an eager, self-important look. She had 
something to say, and would not allow herself 
to be balked of saying it by resentment at her 
mistress’s asperity. 

“Well? Is Sir John Avorse? Is anything 
the matter? Do you knoAv any thing?” 

“Miladi, I knoAv this much: I saw the doc- 
tor who has been coming every morning — every 
morning — so quietly slipping in and out, I watch- 
ed him — Avell, I saAv him this morning, but not 
alone. No, miladi, there AA^as another Avith him 
— a consultation, you see 1 And as they AA'ere 
going away I heard them talking ; and though I 
did not understand every Avord, I have Italian 
enough to make out that they thought it a very 
bad case. And the new doctor said to the old 
one as they Avent out, ‘I giA'e him a month.’ 
Then the other muttered something, and the 
new doctor said again, ‘ Ah, but in this case the 
constitution is shattered.’ And then he said — 
something else: I don’t knoAV Avhat, miladi.” 
Julienne checked herself just in time to avoid 
repeating to “miladi” sundry criticisms respect- 
ing Sir John’s temper, manners, and mode of life, 
Avhich Avere by no means of a flattering nature. 

It did not strike Veronica that the maid’s 
mode of reA^ealing her news, or indeed the fact 
of her reA^ealing it at all, aa'us a proof that “mi- 
ladi’s” affection for Sir John Avas not deemed 
very tender or devoted. Julienne had obviously 
no fear that she might be dealing a heaA^y bloAV 
to her mistress’s heart in repeating the A-erdict 
of the physicians. But that consideration did 
not occur to Veronica. 

Her first fear that Paul had Avatched her, 
traced her to the Villa Reale, and revealed Avhat 
he had heard to Sir John, Avas driven out ; but 
it AA'as only driA'en out by a second and a greater 
apprehension. Sir John Avas very ill ; despaired 
of; dying! She alloAved the maid to coil up 
her hair, keeping, herself, a dead silence. Her 
cheeks Avere very pale. The face that fronted 
her in the glass was a strangely different face 
from that which had been used to be mirrored 
in her old bedroom at home. The rich coloring 
Avhich had been its most striking charm had 
faded in a great measure. Under her eyes Avere 
dark tints that made their brightness ghastly. 
The Avhole face seemed to have fallen. There 
Avere even some haggard lines around the mouth. 
Her youth still asserted itself in the satin texture 
of her skin, and the rich abundance of her raven 
hair. She Avas still beautiful. But she AA'as no 


VERONICA. 


87 


longer that embodiment of Ilebe-like, gladsome 
beauty that she had been a year ago. 

She stared at her own image with a puckered 
brow, and pained compression of the lips. “I 
look old!” she thought. But she said no syl- 
lable. 

“ Dame ! She seems quite to take it to heart !” 
thought the maid, much surprised. “ Can she 
be uneasy about his will ? But these great folks 
are always provided for by the contract of mar- 
riage. ” Mademoiselle J ulienne had lived in very 
“good” families. 

After breakfast Veronica went herself to Sir 
J ohn’s apartments to inquire how he was. The 
answer returned by Paul was, that Sir John 
found himself tolerably well ; and would be glad 
to speak to miladi, if she would give herself the 
trouble of coming to his dressing-room in about 
half an hour. That half hour was a terrible one 
to Veronica. 

Her thoughts seemed to be hurt which way 
soever she turned them, like a bruised body to 
which the slightest movement is pain. If he 
had sent for her to reveal the desperate condi- 
tion of his health, that would be terrible. But, 
on the other hand, if that were not the object of 
this interview — if she were to be accused, re- 
proached, how should she meet it? Resent- 
ment and defiance seemed her only resources. 
Reproach from him! That would be too mon- 
strous ! And yet the idea of defiance was fright- 
ful to her. It would be decisive, irrevocable. 

Veronica had a constitutional antipathy to a 
clearly-marked and unwavering course of action. 
She loved to leave the outlines of her conduct 
blurred, so as to have some imaginary margin 
for escape from the legitimate consequences of 
her actions. The legitimate consequences of 
our actions are frequently cruel in their stern 
logic: and her unhappy, undisciplined nature 
shrank shuddering from the prospect of sustain- 
ed endurance. 

At the end of the allotted half hour she tapped 
at the door of Sir John’s dressing-room; and 
the instant her fingers had made the sound she 
was overcome by an access of terror, and would 
have turned and run away had not Paul opened 
the door immediately upon her summons. He 
ushered her in respectfully ; and she found her- 
self seated — she scarcely knew how — on a low 
chair beside the sofa on which Sir John -yyas re- 
clining. 

Their parts seemed to be for the moment re- 
versed, for it was he who said in a tone of anx- 
iety, “Good Heavens, how pale you are! Are 
you not well ?” 

He held out his thin, white hand to her, and 
lightly touched her fingers with his lips as he 
spoke. The words, and still more the action, 
caused a sudden revulsion of feeling in her flut- 
tering heart. The blood rushed back to her 
cheeks and lips. Her eyes grew bright. The 
tension of the muscles of her face relaxed. He 
would not have greeted her so had he suspected. 
She was safe ! What a fool she had been to tor- 
ment herself as she had done ! 

She answered sweetly, leaving her hand in his, 
“ I was not well. I had a headache this morn- 
ing. I went out early to get rid of it. Perhaps 
Paul told you ?” 

“ Yes ; Paul told me.” 

The tone of the reply startled her. She in- 


voluntarily glanced round at Paul, who was ar- 
ranging his master’s dressing-case. Paul looked 
grave, honest, melancholy, as usual. 

“Basta! Go away, Paul, and don’t come 
back till I ring for you,” said Sir John, sharply. 

Paul obeyed. 

When they were alone together, Veronica said : 

‘ ‘ I feared you were not so well this morning, 
so I came to inquire for you myself.” 

“How considerate you are!” said Sir John, 
shading his eyes with his hand, and looking at 
her from beneath that shelter. 

It was not unusual with him to adopt a sneer- 
ing tone, even in his best humors. But the ring 
of his voice now seemed to Veronica falser than 
usual. It might be that this was the effect of 
the fear which had left her nerves sensitive and 
quivering. At all events she would not display 
any mistrust of him at this moment. 

“Are you feeling stronger this morning?” she 
asked. 

“Stronger? Yes. Oh yes, certainly : a good 
deal stronger. Had you any reason for suppos- 
ing the contrary ?” 

For a moment she hesitated in a little embar- 
rassment. Then she answered, ‘ ‘ My reason was, 
as I told you, that you did not come to break- 
fast.” 

“Ah yes: true! Of course. But now — tell 
me — you were out early this morning, you say ?” 

“Yes.” 

She began to play with a string of amber beads 
that hung round her neck, anil she shifted her 
chair a little. 

“You are not comfortable,” said Sir John, 
still watching her from beneath his hand. 

“ The — the light. There is such a glare.” 

“Ah, the light? Yes : when one has such a 
headache as yours — or even has had such a head- 
ache — the light is disagreeable. I am ashamed 
that you should have the trouble of moving that 
chair for yourself. But you see what a helpless 
creature I am — comparatively, that is ; for the 
fact is, I am stronger, really stronger. Your 
kind anxiety about me does me good. It acts 
as a cordial.” 

“Then you do care for my kindness still?” 
she said, glancing at him, and then letting her 
eyes fall again immediately. 

“ Care for it ! What else have I to care for, 
Veronica? It is every thing to me. And it is 
so precious, so infinitely precious, in itself!” 

She knelt down beside him. Her hand was 
still twisted in the string of amber beads, and 
she played with them nervously as she spoke. 
“And why do you not secure it, this kindness 
that you aMuc, forever? Why do you not re- 
lieve me from the suspense that — I confess it — 
makes my temper fretful and my spirits dull at 
times ?” 

“You do not doubt me, Veronica?” 

“No, no. But suspense and procrastination 
are wearing.” 

“ You do trust me?” 

“Yes.” 

“ You trust me as — as I trust you. And you 
shall find that your confidence will meet with its 
deserts. Do you know what news I heard yes- 
terday ?” 

“No. News? News from England?” 

“Don’t excite yourself. You will make your 
headache Avorse.” 


S8 


VERONICA. 


“Oh, my headache is gone.” 

“Ay, but it may come back. It is of a kind 
that may return at any moment. ” 

Still the old sneer in his tone! And some- 
thing subdued and lurking in his whole manner 
that she could not define to herself, but that made 
its impression upon her. 

“ Your news ! Did you send for me to tell it 
to me?” 

“ Y — yes, partly, mia cara.” 

“Speak then!” she cried, with a flash of im- 
patient temper that made him smile. 

“Well, the news I heard yesterday is, that 
her Majesty’s ship Furibond is here at Nai)les, 
under the command of my old acquaintance. 
Captain Reginald Burr.” 

“Well?” said Veronica, after a moment’s 
pause of expectation. 

“He is a very pleasant fellow, very pleasant 
indeed. I met him years ago at Spezia. ” 

Veronica twisted her Angers more impatiently 
in the amber necklace, and drew her black brows 
together. She thought that Sir John had sim- 
ply introduced this topic to avoid the turn their 
conversation had been taking, and to break the 
thread of it. 

“What is his pleasantness to me?” she ex- 
claimed, pettishly. 

“His pleasantness? Not much. But his 
presence is a good deal to you.” 

“ How ? What do you mean ?” 

“Veronica, you know what I said just now 
about our trust in one another. Faith is to be 
crowned at last. It has not been my fault — as 
you ought to know' — that you have been kept in 
suspense so long. You have blamed me, but un- 
justly, as you will find.” 

She seemed stricken motionless, with her eyes 
fixed on his face; only the breath came and 
went quickly between her parted lips. 

“ I am not well enough to travel to Florence,” 
he continued, watching lier eager face with a 
strange, gloating look. “But, listen, Veronica, 
mia bella !” Pie drew her head down to his lips 
and whispered a short sentence in her ear. 

Her face glowed and changed like a scorched, 
drooping J uly rose after a summer shower. She 
sprang to her feet and clasped her hands togeth- 
er. In the sudden gesture of withdrawing her 
fingers from the necklace the string snapped, and 
the amber beads rolled scattered hither and thith- 
er about the floor. 

“You consent?” said Sir John. 

“ Yes, yes, yes. I — I have wronged you some- 
times in my thoughts. F'orgive me!” she ex- 
claimed, impulsively, taking his hand in hers and 
kissing it. 

“You will remember that it was this day I 
conceived the plan. This day. You will keep 
in your memory the date of the day on which 
you went out so early to the Villa Reale for your 
headache.” 

“I am not likely to need any thing to remind 
me of to-day.” 

“ No ; but there is a good deal in association. 
Association aids memory so wonderfully. Now, 
tesoro mio, ring for Paul, and leave me. I am 
a little tired and overexcited.” 

“I will not disobey you to-day of all days,” 
she said. Her countenance was radiant, her step 
clastic. Before she went away she stopped to 
gather up the amber beads. 


1 “ There is some superstition about losing am- 

ber you have once worn,” she said, smiling. 
“They say it is unlucky. But I shall prove the 
fallacy of the notion. My amber necklace broke 
and fell at a moment of great happiness and good 
fortune.” 

“Yes. You will prove the fallacy of the su- 
perstition quite triumphantly. Ha! It is cu- 
rious — M.’e, at least, may defy augury. ” 


CHAPTER XI. 

HER majesty’s SHIP THE “ FURIBOND.” 

The Prince Alberto Barletti passed the great- 
er part of his time in Paris. He was a poor man 
for his rank, and if he could have found some way 
of increasing his income without risk, he would 
have been very glad to avail himself of it. But 
he shrank from the idea of speculation. As to 
earning money, that was out of the question. 
And a desirable way of increasing his income 
W'ithout risk or trouble had not yet occurred to 
him. One day, however, fortune seemed to re- 
member him in a good-natured mood. 

A company of English speculators commenced 
operations in Naples. They w'ere to build and 
beautify. The first preliminary, of course, w'as 
to destroy. IMany houses must be pulled down, 
and their proprietors reimbursed. A good deal 
of diplomacy was expended on the poAvers that 
ruled such matters. People who possessed in- 
fluence were canvassed diligently. 

It chanced that Prince Barletti was, rightly or 
wrongly, supposed to be one of the influential. 
But how to obtain his good-w'ill ? The English 
speculators, some of them, would have been a lit- 
tle clumsy in conducting the affair. But they 
had a clever man in their pay who knew the 
world. The clever man was IMr. Sidney Frost, 
of the firm of Lovegrove and Frost, solicitors to 
the company. Mr. F rost soon learned that Prince 
Barletti was not rich in proportion to the illus- 
triousness of his rank. In plain words, he might 
be open to a bribe. But the mode of offering 
the bribe w'as all-important. IMr. Frost, in con- 
sultation with the architects and surveyors, dis- 
covered that it Avould be very desirable to run a 
new road right through a palazzo owned by 
Prmce J3arletti. No one had thought before that 
the road could pass Avithin half a mile of the 
palace. But Mr. Frost’s opinion Avas speedily 
adopted. 

Negotiations Avere set on foot Avith the prince. 
He had hitherto been understood to express 
himself hostilely tOAvard the Avhole undertaking 
of this foreign company of speculators. But IMr. 
Frost thought it so desirable to persuade his 
Signoria Illustrissima, and to bring him round, 
that he started off from Naples after he had been 
there but a short time, and Avent to Paris armed 
Avith a letter of introduction, and Avith schemes 
and plans in Avhich the neAv road OA'er the site 
of the Palazzo Barletti Avas not forgotten. The 
prince shoAved himself open to conviction. He 
became a strong partisan of the English com- 
pany, and his change of mind Avas folloAved by a 
corresponding change of mind in sundry indi- 
viduals in Naples. It Avas a pity, said the prince, 
to destroy the old house. It had been associated 
Avith the family name for several generations. 


VERONICA. 


But he understood what was meant by public l 
spirit, and he would not let his private feelings : 
interfere with it. 

“ This Prince Bah-letty charges a pretty long 
price for his private feelings!” observed one of 
the directors of the English company when Mr. 
Frost laid before them the result of his mission 
to Paris. But Mr. Frost said he thought that 
the prince’s private feelings were not very dear, 
considering that he was a prince. And he added 
that he thought they would be found to come 
cheap in the end. 

The arrangement of this affair caused Mr. 
Frost to come in contact with the prince’s youn- 
ger brother, Cesare. The latter was charged by 
the head of the family to watch his interests. 
Cesare became greatly impressed by the com- 
bination in Mr. Frost of business shrewdness 
with an engaging manner. This was another 
kind of man from the slow, snuffy, solemn old 
“legale” Dottore Chiappi, with whom he had 
transacted business for his brother in Florence. 
They met, Cesare de’ Barletti and Sidney Frost, 
nearly every morning, either at the company’s 
offices or at Mr. Frost’s hotel. 

About a week after the memorable day of the 
interview in the Villa Keale between Veronica 
and Cesare, the latter was sitting with Mr. Frost 
in his rooms at Santa Lucia. They were seated 
near the window ; and were vaguely looking out 
at the blue, sparkling sea, and settling some few 
last particulars relative to their business. For 
Mr. Frost was to leave Naples by the steamer for 
Marseilles, on his way to England, the next day ; 
unless — which he thought unlikely — a telegram 
should arrive from England to detain him. 

“You and the English squadron will depart 
almost together,” said Barletti. 

“ Ay ? The queen’s ships are going away ?” 

“ So I hear.” 

“ Have you ever been over an English man-of- 
war?” asked Mr. Frost. 

“No; I don’t understand ships. When' we 
were boys we used to go out sometimes from 
Capri, my brother and I, with an old fisherman. 
But I never cared about it.” 

“H’m!” grunted Mr. Frost, eying his com- 
panion aside. “/ don’t understand ships either ; 
but a British man-of-war is a fine sight.” 

And the lawyer broke out into a little national 
boasting. 

“Ah, you like it because you are proud of 
your fleet. I am not an Englishman, and I should 
not be proud of it, you know,” said Barletti, 
quietly. 

“Look there!” exclaimed Mr. Frost, staring 
out to sea. “Do you see that boat putting off 
from the squadron ? I think, from the direction, 
she must be coming from the Fvrihond ; but 
without a glass it is impossible to see the ships. 
How they pull, the blue-jackets ! Just watch 
them. It’s artistic. Strength, and the kind of 
grace ^lat comes from strength skillfully used. 
See how they bend and rise, and how the oars all 
flash together. They are pulling for this nearest 
landing-place.” 

Mr. Frost craned his head out of the window 
to w'atch. Barletti, too, rose and looked out. 
On came the trim boat manned by trim sailors. 
She seemed to scud over the sea like a living 
thing. As she drew near, they could see the 
dark blue uniform of an officer, who was steer- 


89 

ing. And they began to make out also two 
other figures — a man and a woman. 

“Visitors to the squadron, whom they’re go- 
ing to put ashore,” said Mr. Frost. 

The landing-place to which the boat came w'as 
at a considerable distance from the hotel. They 
could not distinguish .the features of the persons 
in the boat. But they saw a carriage which had 
been driving slowly up and down come to a sto]) 
close by. Two servants descended from it, and 
half supported, half carried the gentleman who 
had been in the boat into the vehicle. The lady 
followed, and they drove off. The ship’s boat 
then was pulled back again toward the squadron, 
and swiftly diminished to a mere speck on the 
waters. 

The carriage, however, passed close beneath 
the windows of the hotel, and Barletti gave a 
little exclamation as he recognized Paul seated 
on the box. The blinds of the carriage were 
down, and it was impossible to see its occupants ; 
but Barletti had no doubt that they were Sir 
John Gale and Veronica. 

‘ ‘ Tiens ! ” said Barletti. ‘ ‘ I know those peo- 
ple who have just come from the Furieux — Fu- 
rihon — what do you call it ?” 

Mr. Frost was looking at his watch. “ I am 
sorry to turn you out,” he said ; “but I have an 
appointment with some of our directors at half 
past ten. It is a quarter past ten now. I must 
be off.” 

“ Nay,” replied Barletti, pulling out his own 
watch. “ You are fast, I think. By my watch 
it is only five minutes past ten.” 

“Ah, you’re wrong, prince. If minutes were 
as precious with you as they are with me you 
would regulate your watch better. You reckon 
your time as rich men reckon their money — in 
large sums ; and know nothing of small subdi- 
visions. But mine is a working watch, a busy 
man’s watch, right to a second. And I set it 
last night by railway time. Will you go first, or 
shall I lead the way ?” 

“Che diavolo!” muttered Barletti, following 
the lawyer down stairs. “It didn’t strike me at 
first, but now I think how early it is, what in the 
w'orld could have brought him out at this hour 
in the morning !” 

“Eh?” said Frost, half turning round on the 
staircase. 

“Nothing. I was only wondering why my 
friends chose such an hour to visit the squadron.” 

“The gentleman seems to be an invalid.” 

“Yes, he is ill and regularly used up. I 
heard from his physician that his doom is fixed. 
He can’t last much longer.” 

“Ah, indeed!” returned Frost, indifferently. 
His attention was more occupied in finding the 
hook in the hall marked twenty-seven, on which 
to hang the key of his room, than in listening to 
Barletti. 

“ He is very rich — one of your English mill- 
ionaires. Perhaps you know the name — Baronet 
Sir John Gale.” 

“Gale! Tallis Gale?” 

“ Ah, you know him?” 

“I know of him, and ncJthing to his credit. 
I'm sorry if he’s your friend ; but in England he 
bears a very bad character.” 

“Oh, I have no special love for him,” an- 
swered Barletti. “ I believe him to be a roue 
! and a vaurien.” 


90 


VERONICA. 


“ He used that poor wife of his infernally ill.” 

“ Used her ill ? The brute ! I have suspect- 
ed it.” 

“ Oh, it’s not a matter of suspicion. The story 
is well known enough. Well, I, must be off. I 
may not see you again, prince. But I suppose 
our little affair is settled. Good-by !” 

“Good-by! You really start to-morrow? 
Well, bon voyage!” 

Mr. Frost walked away briskly. Barletti re- 
mained in the doorway of the hotel. He stood 
there pondering with an unlit cigar in his hand ; 
and was roused from a reverie by the conscious- 
ness that some one was behind him wanting to 
pass out. He looked round, and saw an officer 
in the uniform of the English navy. 

“Pardon!” said the officer, raising his cap 
courteously. Barletti took oft* his hat. 

The officer had moved away a few paces, when 
he stopped, came back, and said in French : 
“ Excuse me, but are you staying at this hotel?” 

“No. I came here merely to see a friend.” 

“Then you don’t happen to know whether 
there is any one of that name here ?” said the 
officer, showing a card with an English name on 
it. “ The porter is very surly, or very stupid. I 
can make nothing of him. But I have an idea 
that my friend must be here, if 1 could but get 
at him.” 

Barletti good-naturedly went into the porter’s 
little glass den, and began to speak in voluble 
Neapolitan to a man who was doing duty there. 
He proved to be the porter’s deputy, that chief 
functionary being absent temporarily from his 
post. 

“If you don’t mind waiting a few minutes,” 
said Barletti, returning to the doorway, ‘ ‘ the 
porter will be back. That fellow knows nothing ; 
understands only two words of French, and won’t 
confess his ignorance. I have rated him in the 
strongest vernacular.” 

The officer made his acknowledgments, of- 
fered Barletti a light for his cigar, and waited 
beside him for the porter’s return. 

“ You have had some friends of mine visiting 
the squadron this morning,” said Barletti, glan- 
cing curiously at the square -jawed, smooth- 
shaven face of the sailor, who stood there with 
a certain massive imperturbability. 

‘ ‘ Indeed ? This morning ?” 

“Is your ship the Furieux?" 

“The Furibond^ yes. Do you mean that the 
lady and gentleman who were aboard the Furi- 
bond this morning are friends of yours ?” 

“The gentleman is old and feeble?” 

“Yes; not so very old, perhaps, but awfully 
shady and used up.” 

“The lady young and beautiful?” 

“ Magnificently handsome.” 

“Yes, yes. Oh, I know them w^ell. I was 
surprised to see him out so early.” 

“ I suppose he thought there was no time to 
be lost. Besides, it is customary with us to 
manage these matters so that they shall be over 
before twelve o’clock.” 

“Before twelve? I had no idea that that 
was a rule in your navy. ” 

“Oh, not exclusively in the navy,” answered 
the officer, smiling a little. , 

“ How ? I don’t understand.” 

“Afloat or ashore, marriages take place with 
us before twelve at noon. ” 


‘ ‘ Marriages F 

The amazement in Barletti’s face w’as so deep 
and genuine that the officer stared in his turn. 

“Did you not know?” he said. “I thought 
you told me that the bride and bridegroom were 
friends of yours ?” 

“ The — the — bride and — ? Oh, it must be a 
mistake. I was speaking of the lady and gen- 
tleman who were rowed ashore at that landing- 
place, not a quarter of an hour ago, in a little 
boat.” 

“To be sure! I was steering. I am ashore 
on leave.” 

“ He is an Englishman — a rich — ” 

“ Sir John Gale.” 

“ Sir John. And they were, you say — ?” 

“They were married by our chaplain. The 
old boy — the baronet, I mean — was not strong 
enough to take the journey to Florence, where 
they might have been married before the British 
minister. So, as he knows Captain Burr, he got 
him to allow the ceremony to take place aboard 
the Furibond. The young lady has the pros- 
pect of a speedy widowffiood before her, it seems 
to me.” 

Barletti had felt like a man groping in a mist. 
Now, the last words of the Englishman came 
like a sudden ray clearing the dim confusion. 
They suggested a pathway foi his conjectures to 
follow ; w'hereas, before, all had been blank and 
formless. His first and most imperative impulse 
was to get away and think of wffiat he had heard, 
alone. He touched his hat hastily in farewell 
salutation to the officer, hailed an empty fiacre 
that was passing, and jumped into it. 

The driver, with that penury of articulate 
speech and abundance of gesticulation which 
characterizes the low'er Neapolitans, asked in 
dumb show which direction he w’as to drive in. 

“Any where,” said Barletti, throwing him- 
self back on the seat. “To — to — the Villa 
Reale. Drive on till I stop you !” 



CHAPTER XII. 

NO LESS TH.VN KIN, AND MORE THAN KIND. 

That a w'oman who has pledged herself sol- 
emnly before the w^orld and her owm conscience 
to be faithful to a man, should be false to him, 
did not seem, in Barletti’s confused code of 
ethics, to be blameworthy. Veronica, false to 
her husband, would have sunk no jot in Ce- 
sare’s esteem. It would all have been accord- 
ing to the experience of the w^orld in which he 
had lived : a loveless, ambitious marriage, and a 
subsequent compensating attachment. The ex- 
perience of the world in which he had lived W'as 
his religion ; its opinion, his conscience. He 
would, no doubt, have acted in contradiction to 
his world’s opinion under sufficient temptation : 
as men with a higher creed have acted against 
their conscience. But he w'ould have experi- 
enced the same sort of pain in so doing as at- 
tends the conscious disregard of whatever w^e are 
accustomed to consider as a sanction. 

Now he was called upon to readjust all his 
ideas regarding Sir John Gale and Veronica. 
His first strong sentiment in the matter w'as 
blame of Sir John. And it w'as not altogether 
unpleasant to find a justification for an even 


VERONICA. 


91 


stronger dislike to the baronet than he had yet 
confessed to himself that he entertained. !Sir 
J ohn was an old villain ! He had brought this 
girl away from her home. He must have de- 
ceived her basely. Poor, lonely, helpless, inex- 
perienced girl ! 

This, then, accounted for her apprehension on 
hearing that Sir John’s life was in danger ! She 
knew how horrible her position would be should 
he die before making 'her his wife. It seemed 
pretty clear that the sentence of the physicians 
had fixed Sir John’s wavering mind, and de- 
termined the performance of this act of repa- 
ration toward Veronica. She had conquered! 
Barletti felt some admiring triumph in that 
thought. But it did not soften him toward 
the baronet. 

He believed Sir John to be thoroughly cynical 
and unprincipled ; but that did not make it in- 
credible that the old roue should have been 
frightened into doing right by the near ap- 
proach of death. It was quite conceivable to 
him that such tardy reparation might avail him 
before the Tribunal to which Sir John must 
shortly be summoned. The priests taught the 
efficacy of a death bed repentance. He (Bar- 
letti) did not much believe in the priests ; but 
these were professional matters which they prob- 
ably understood. It was no concern of his to 
inquire further. He had no more idea of ar- 
raigning the morality of such teaching than of 
repudiating all laAv because a thief might possi- 
bly escape punishment by a technical flaw in the 
indictment. And he was perfectly at liberty to' 
detest the thief all the same. 

This late selfish restitution could not obliterate 
the memory of the harassing anxiety to which 
Veronica had been cruelly subjected. And there 
was, too, the latent consideration — flavoring the 
whole current of his reflections — that he himself 
had narrowly escaped being placed in an unpleas- 
ant position. It was one thing to be the favored 
suitor of a wealthy widow ; and quite another to 
be bound to a woman without rank, or money, or 
influence ; whose sole dowry would be her beauty, 
and an imperious appetite for the luxuries that 
only great wealth can purchase. 

What had he to offer to Veronica if she were 
poor ? He might have lost her altogether ! And 
his instinctive conviction that she was incapable 
of loving him with a love which should enable 
her to 'endure poverty for his sake, did not mili- 
tate against the strength of his passion for her. 

But suppose, after all, she were to throw him 
over, now that she was secure? She would be 
very rich — that he took for granted ; and would 
have a brilliant position in her own country. He 
became nervously impatient to see her again, and 
yet he dreaded to find a change in her manner. 

He had met Veronica twice since their first 
memorable interview in the Villa Reale. She 
liad debated anxiously with herself whether she 
had not best break her appointment. But she 
had come to the conclusion that she did not 
dare to drive Barletti to desperation. He might 
in his rashness dash the cup from her lips, even 
at the last moment. They had met, therefore, 
and Barletti had given his report of the doctor’s 
opinion, and then had claimed in reward of his 
zeal the privilege of protesting his devoted love. 
Veronica had made the interview as brief as 
possible on each occasion. But she had been 


gentle and soft in her manner to Barletti, and 
had professed herself very grateful for the trou- 
ble he had taken. 

He tried to recall the minutest circumstances 
of these interviews ; at one moment twisting and 
interpreting Veronica’s looks and words into an 
acknowledgment of her love for him ; at another 
telling himself that it was plain she cared no jot 
for him, and was only using his devotion without 
a thought of reciprocating it. All his medita- 
tions resulted in an impatient longing to see and 
speak with Veronica. He resolved to take the 
step of going to the palazzo she inhabited at 
once, instead of waiting for the usual hour of 
his evening visit. 

The wretched little cab horse, which, like most 
of its class in Naples, seemed to have a mysteri- 
ous force not derived from food, and which had 
continued its shuffling trot as though, poor beast, 
it were desperately trying to run away from ex- 
istence, was pulled up with a sudden check at a 
signal from Barletti. He alighted, paid for his 
drive, and walked hastily away. The sum he 
gave the driver inspired in that individual senti- 
ments of mingled contempt and self-reproach. 
The contempt was excited by the spectacle of a 
man — a native Neapolitan, too, per Bacco ! — so 
soft as to pay him three times his fare. The 
reason of his self-reproach, of a rather poignant 
kind, was that he had not had presence of mind 
to demand double the money ! 

Barletti, on presenting himself at Sir John 
Gale’s house, ■was told by the porter that his 
master could see no one. He had been out 
that moniing, and was fatigued and unwell. 

“Miladi, then?” asked Barletti. 

The man looked a little suiq)rised at the un- 
precedented circumstance of Barletti’s asking 
for “ miladi” at that hour ; but he said he would 
send to ask wdiether the signora could receive 
the signor principe. While he waited for the 
message to be taken up, Bavletti’s mind mis- 
gave him as to the advisability of the step he 
had taken. He tvished he could have gone 
without delay into her presence. This waiting 
gave one time to cool, and to take account of 
unpleasant possibilities. 

When Veronica’s maid tripped down stairs 
and invited Barletti to follow her to miladi’s 
boudoir, he was in a state of great trepidation. 
The boudoir was untenanted when he entered it, 
and for the moment he felt this to be a relief. 
He sat down and waited, looking round on the 
evidences of wealth which met his eye, and feel- 
ing a very unaccustomed amount of self-depre- 
ciation and timidity. * 

The door opened and Veronica appeared. She 
wore a changing silk dress, whose hue deepened 
in the shadows of its sweeping folds from silver- 
gray to dove-color. Round the throat and wrists 
was a small frill of fine lace. There was not a 
gleam of jewelry about her, save on the third 
finger of her left hand, where a massive gold 
ring was half hidden in the blaze of a single 
splendid diamond set in a broad band of gold, 
and suimounting the plain ring. She was pale, 
and looked tired. 

“What is it?” she asked, advancing with slow 
grace, and giving him her hand. 

He forgot every thing in the enchantment of 
gazing on her beauty, and stood silently holding 
her hand in his, and feeling his heart so full of 


92 


VERONICA. 


mingled emotions that the tears -welled up into 
his eyes. A little faint color fluttered over her 
cheeks and throat. She slowly withdrew her 
hand, and motioned him to a seat. She was 
keenly alive to his speechless admiration, and 
it revived her like a cordial. She had been 
feeling languor and the reaction of intense ex- 
citement, like a runner who drops the moment 
after he has reached the goal. 

“What is it ?” she asked again. “ You asked 
for Sir John. He is not visible. Is it any thing 
important that has brought you here so early ?” 

“I did not expect to see — your husband,” said 
Barletti, not accepting the proffered chair, but 
standing before her as she sat, and looking down 
upon her. 

A vivid blush crimsoned her face and neck. 
Barletti had spoken with intention, and she had 
noted that he had done so. She tried to mask 
her real emotion by a feigned one, and threw 
some haughty resentment into her voice as she 
replied : “You did not expect to see him ? Why, 
then, did you come at this hour ? I should not 
have received you but that I thought you had 
some real business with Sir John. ” 

“ I came to see you, Veronica.” 

“ Then you acted imprudently and inconsider- 
ately.” 

“Imprudently for myself, perhaps. It may 
be that the most prudent thing I could do would 
be to see you no more. But I have not acted 
inconsiderately toward you in coming. Y''ou 
have no longer any reason to fear Sir John 
Gale’s anger or caprice. Y’’esterday it would 
have been different.” 

She put her hand on her breast, which was 
rising and falling quickly. She preserved the 
haughty attitude of her head as she looked up 
at him; but her lips quivered in spite of her- 
self, and she could not trust them to frame a 
word. 

“I saw you being rowed to the landing-place,” 
he proceeded. ‘ ‘ And then I accidentally got into 
conversation with an English officer of marine 
who belonged to the ship that you — visited this 
morning. I could scarcely believe my eyes or 
my ears at first. But then suddenly a great 
many things that had puzzled me grew clear. ” 

Still she was silent ; but her head drooped a 
little, and she turned her eyes away from him. 
He had not expected this. He had thought to 
see her triumphant, but she seemed downcast 
and oppressed. Or was this the beginning of 
the change in her toward himself, which he had 
dimly foreboded ? 

V'eronica,” he said, pleadingly, “you might 
have trusted me ! I should have been true to 
you. But you were so proud and so secret. 
How you must have suffered !” 

She had been oppressed by a crowd of con- 
fused feelings : surprise, mortified pride, an un- 
defined sense of relief in the knowledge that Ce- ! 
sare knew the real facts of her position and was 
still devoted to her; at the same time a hostile 
movement of amour propre which shuddered at 
the idea of falling from the high place she had 
occupied in his thoughts. His last words, and 
the tone of compassion in his voice, touched a 
morbidly sensitive chord in her overstrained 
nerves, and, suddenly dropping her face upon 
her open palms, she burst into a passion of 
crying. Perplexed and distressed he came and 


leaned over her chair, murmuring her name at 
intervals, and timidly touching the folds of her 
long sweeping gown. Her tears relieved and 
soothed her, and as she cried she thought. Even 
after the first burst of weeping had exhausted it- 
self she kept her face hidden, feeling that her at- 
titude and her distress afforded a kind of ambush 
wherein to collect her thoughts. 

“ Veronica, you are not angry with me ?” said 
Barletti. 

She had by this time been inspired wdth an 
idea which was as balm to her hurt pride. It 
was intolerable to her to be an object of pity to 
the man who had Avorshiped her. Sympathy — 
even compassion, so long as it Avere blended 
Avith sufficient admiration — she could endure. 
But she must regain the leA^el she fancied she 
had lost. She Avould reveal to Barletti the 
fact of their relationship. She had concealed 
it until she could look her kinsman freely in 
the face Avithout communicating any breath of 
dishonor to her mother’s race ! As the thought 
passed through her mind she began to believe in 
it, as an actor belicA-es for the moment in Ijis 
mimic sorroAvs. And she felt quite magnani- 
mous Avith a sense of noble self-sacrifice. The 
anticipated enjoyment of her coming “point” 
gave her face an expression of exaltation as she 
raised it from her concealing hands, and pushed 
the clustering hair back from her forehead. 

“Cesare,” she said, in a Amice Avhich had not 
quite regained its steadiness, ‘ ‘ I have something 
to tell you.” 

' It Avas the first time she had eAmr called him 
‘ ‘ Cesare, ” and the sound of his name uttered by 
her lips overpoAAmred him with joy. He fell on 
his knees and kissed her hand in his demoustra- 
tiAm southern Avay. 

“ Anima mia, do I not knoAv already Avhat you 
Avould tell me ?” 

“No,” replied Veronica, AAuth a faint melan- 
choly smile ; ‘ ‘ you do not knoAv or guess. Sit 
doAvn there, opposite to me, and listen. You 
said a reproachful Avord to me just noAV about 
not having trusted you. I Avant you to under- 
stand hoAv little I deserve a reproach from you.” 

Barletti began to protest that he had neAmr 
meant to reproach her ; but she checked him. 

“ No, no ; say no more. Hear me out. Last 
autumn at the Villa Chiari, AA'hen I Avas startled 
and alarmed by Sir John’s illness, you remember 
that I spoke to you about it ?” 

“Remember! Ah, Veronica, can I forget any 
Avord of yours ?” 

‘ ‘ Many, I should think : but probably not 
tliose AA'ords. Well; it aa^s not merely that 
you Avere the only intimate acquaintance Avho 
frequented our house; it Avas not even that I 
thought you kind-hearted and sj^mpathizing, 
and that in my utter loneliness I yearned for 
kindness and sympathy. No: all that would 
I not have sufficed to make me confide in you as 
I did. I kneAv that there AA\as a tie betAveen us 
Avhich gave me a real claim on you. Cesare, 
you and I are cousins.” 

“Cousins! You and I are cousins! But 
hoAv ? Oh, Veronica, and you neA'er said a Avord 
— never gave a hint — that — ” 

“No. I neA'er said a Avord, nor gaA’e a hint 
of our relationship. I neA'er should haA'e done 
so, had not Sir John done me justice and placed 
me in a position Avhich I could acknoAvledge to 


VERONICA. 


93 


my kindred. My mother was Stella Maria de 
Barletli ; and your grandfather and my grand- 
fivlher were brothers.” 

‘ ‘ Dio mio ! But he — Gale — must have known 
this?” 

Veronica had not anticijiated this common- 
sense remark. Barletti did not appear suthcient- 
ly impressed by the greatness of her conduct. 
When a sensitive artist has made his point, he 
requires to be sustained and encouraged by the 
enthusiasm of his auditors. 

“Sir John Gale,” replied Veronica, haughti- 
ly, “probably never heard the name of my mo- 
ther. She has been dead many years. I have 
not been in the habit of speaking to him of my 
maternal ancestors. He is a parvenu, and, like 
all parvenus, pretentious and jealous on the score 
of family.” 

This magnificent tone a little bewildered Bar- 
letti. He knew very well what value was set on 
a member of the younger branch of the princely 
family de’ Barletti in their own country. Poor 
princes had been plentiful in his world ever since 
he could remember ; but rich English baronets 
had not. He recollected haHng heard that his 
respected great-uncle (Veronica’s grandfather) 
had married a young English lady with a very 
moderate dowry (as to her pedigree, no one had 
thought of inquiring, so far as he knew), and 
that his respected great-uncle was thought to 
have done uncommonly well. 

“And so we are really cousins!” he said, 
looking wistfully at Veronica’s tear-stained face. 
“ Ah, idolo mio, no cousinshij) can make me love 
you more than I love you already !” 

“ You do not seem to understand, Cesare, that 
I refrained from claiming you as my kinsman, 
or of hinting at our relationship to Sir John, sole- 
ly out of regard to the honor of our family,” said 
Veronica, impatiently. “Some women might 
have appealed to you to see them righted. But, 
although I knew that the facts of my story could 
do you no dishonor, I resolved to keep my se- 
cret until I could face the world, which judges 
only by outside appearances.” 

This was clumsy enough. The inspiration 
which enables such imitative temperaments as 
Veronica’s to deceive themselves had faded from 
lack of responsive sympathy. But the apiJause 
must be had, at whatsoever cost of insistence! 
At last Cesare understood what was expected of 
liim. And, be it noted, there was nothing in 
his mind to make his response otherwise than 
genuine. 

“Dear, noble Veronica !” he exclaimed, gaz- 
ing into her face with intense admiration. 

“Ah, Cesare, you did not understand me !” 

“ But I know, now, how brave and noble you 
have been ! And I know how utterly unworthy 
of you is that man who — ” 

“ Hush ! Let that rest. He is very, very ill.” 

“I saw him lifted into the carriage. But, 
Veronica, he may linger a long time yet.” 

She made no answer, but drew a little apart 
from him, as he seated himself beside her. 

“I wish — I wish, Veronica, that you would 
throw me a word of hope to feed on in these 
weary days ! ” 

“ What can I sa^^, Cesare ? This is not a mo- 
ment to i^ress such words on me. Do not make 
me feel that I could not dare to rely on you and 
appeal to you if — if I were left alone here.” 


“ You might give me a rig])t, then^ to be relied 
on, and appealed to. Veronica, I adore you! 
I would devote my life to you ! ” 

“ Cesare, at such a time! When he is lying 
there so ill ! ” 

“But he has been ill all these months!” said 
Barletti, simply. 

“Then think of ?ne/ I am worn out, and 
can not bear much more excitement. If you 
will talk to me calmly, as a friend and a kins- 
man, you may. If you can not promise to do 
that, you must go away at once.” 

“You are hard with me, Veronica.” 

“ It is most ungrateful to say so. Tell me — 
that English officer you spoke with, did he say — 
did he speak — do you think he will talk to every 
comer as he did to you ?” asked Veronica, flush- 
ing hotly as she brought out the question. 

Barletti reassured her. The officer had spok- 
en merely because Barletti had mentioned Sir 
J ohn as his friend. Of course a ceremony per- 
formed in that way, on board a ship of wai', could 
not be supposed to be in any sense a secret. But 
the squadron was to depart immediately. There 
would be no opportunity for the thing to spread 
among the people who ffiiew her here. Barletti, 
as he said this, did not believe it. But he saw 
that she greatly dreaded the secret getting abroad ; 
and he thought only of soothing her anxiety. He 
tried, then, to induce her to tell him about her 
home and her family, and how it had come to 
pass that she had left England with Sir John 
Gale. But on this subject she was not willing 
to speak quite unprepared. 

“ You told me to, talk to you as a friend and 
a kinsman, Veronica,” said he. “A kinsman, 
s.urely, has some right to your confidence. ” 

“Some day, Cesare,” she answered, “you 
shall know the story of my life. The life has 
not been long, but the story can not be told 
quicMy. I can not bring myself to make the 
effort now. You must have patience, and some 
day I will not refuse what you ask me. There 
is my hand on it. It is a promise.” 

Her tone, and look, and gesture conveyed 
more than the mere words. He was about to 
speak, but she lightly laid the fingers of her left 
hand (he held her right hand in his) on his lips. 

“ Nof a word more,” she said. “Go now. 
You will come this evening ; and, above all, do 
not allow Sir John to guess that you saw him 
this morning! Farewell!” 

“ Veronica, one word ! It is a question I have 
wanted to ask you ; do you know an Englishman 
named Frost ?” 

“Frost? No.” 

“ He knows you, and spoke of you. Or it 
may be — now I think of it — that he only knows 
you by report. I forget his exact words.” 

“Knows me! What did he say ?” 

“ He said that Gale treated you very ill.” 

“ He said that? Tell me exactly, word for 
word, what he said !” 

“Well, I think,” replied Barletti, pondering, 
“ that his words were, ‘ Sir John Gale uses that 
poor wife of his very ill. ’ ” 

“Wife! Ah!” exclaimed Veronica, drawing 
a long breath. “ He spoke of me as Lady 
Gale ?” 

“Yes, yes; I am sure of that. But where 
can he have known any thing about you ?” 

‘ ‘ It matters very little. In Florence, perhaps. 


94 


VERONICA. 


You have told me enough to show what a hot- 
bed of gossip there is there. Quiet as we were, 
we did not escape the tongues of those creatures 
who lounge at the club-door, I dare say. ” 

Barletti felt a little uncomfortable t\vdnge of 
conscience as he remembered that he himself had 
made one in a discussion respecting her, at the 
very spot she mentioned. And her flashing eye 
and disdainful attitude recalled to him, moreover. 
Sir John’s warning not to tell “ miladi” that her 
name had been spoken at the club. 

“Farewell until this evening, Veronica, mia 
adorata !” 

“ Good-by, Cousin Cesare.” 

When he was gone she sat down opposite to a 
large mirror. “ Princess !” she said, softly, to 
herself. “Principessa de’ Barletti!” Veronica 
understood, although Cesare did not, what the 
worth of such a title would be in England. Then 
she stretched herself on a sofa and rested her 
head on soft cushions. She was really weary in 
mind and body, and presently fell off into a 
sleep. 

Toward the end of her sleep she began to 
dream. She dreamed that she was going to be 
married to Mr. Ple^y, and that she was reluct- 
antly walking by his side through St. Gildas’s 
grave-yard, toward the church. And, as they 
came near to an ancient upright stone she well 
remembered. Sir John Gale, white and ghastly 
in his grave-clothes, darted out from behind it, 
and, with a yell of hoarse laughter, bade them 
stop. 

♦ 

CHAPTER XIII. 

REPARATIOX. 

“ ‘To my beloved wife.’ That will be suffi- 
cient. Take these things away, and put another 
pillow behind my shoulders, Paul. Paul ! Paul ! 
do you hear ?” 

Then followed a hoarse muttered volley of 
oaths, and Sir John sank back on his pillow. 

Veronica and Barletti stood beside his bed. 
The former very pale and excited: the latter 
wondering, and impressed by the change in Sir 
John’s face. There was an awful look upon it. 
The skill seemed to be burned and shrf^^eled by 
an inward scorching fire. The eyes looked out 
glassy and prominent from under their red eye- 
brows. There was a harsh stubble of beard upon 
the cheeks and chin. 

“You have explained to him, have you?” 
asked Sir John, in a faint voice, making a slight 
movement with the emaciated hand that lay out- 
side the -coverlet, toward Barletti, 

“ He understands the purport of what you tell 
us you have written,” answered Veronica. 

^ * Ay, that is right. I want him to understand. 
The estate in Dorsetshire is entailed, and will go 
to a cursed snob, a third cousin who inherits the 
baronetcy, curse him! *But the money in the 
English funds, the plate, the house in town, the 
railway shares, and — and eveiy thing else, in 
short, will be ‘ my beloved wife’s. ’ ” 

He said the words with so strangely malevo- 
lent a grimace on his withered face that Veron- 
ica stared at him with wide eyes, for once uncon- 
scious of their own expression. Barletti, too, 
was struck by the look, though he could not fully 
comprehend the words of Sir John. The latter 


had lately — during the last day or so, that is — 
ceased to speak any language but his own. It 
troubled him to talk French, he said. At a^y 
time of his life, and under any circumstances, it 
would have appeared to him a sufficient reason 
for refraining ffiom doing any thing to say that 
it troubled him. But as things were with him, 
it was very obvious that he was unequal to mak- 
ing much continued effort. 

“Does Gale say it has been signed?” asked 
Barletti of Veronica. 

Sir John’s ear had caught the question, and 
he answered it. 

“ Oh yes ! Yes, the witnesses ! Ay, we must 
have witnesses, or it would not be a legal instru- 
ment. Ha, ha, ha ! Yes, yes. Oh, it is signed ; 
it is witnessed. I have taken care !” 

In obedience to a sign from his master, whose 
every movement he watched attentively, Paul 
took a small key from a ring attached to his 
master’s watch-chain, and with it unlocked a 
desk that stood at one end of the room opposite 
to the bed. He then opened an inner compart- 
ment of the desk, which was fastened by a spring, 
and took out a folded paper covered with writing 
on one side. When all was done. Sir John 
stretched his hand out for the paper to be given 
to him. His eyes traveled over the writing — it 
was very short — and then glanced at Barletti and 
Veronica as they stood side by side near the bed. 
With a sudden movement his fingers cramped 
themselves on the paper they held, creasing it 
into irregular folds. 

“Go away, go away!” he gasped out. “Go 
and leave me. And — Paul, Vaul! Take you 
this precious paper, and lock it up again care- 
fully in the drawer of that desk. Let them see 
you do it. So ; so. And you are a witness to 
it, remember. You will know and recollect that 
that is my will, which leaves the bulk of my 
property to my wife — ‘ to my beloved wife. ’ Now 
go.” 

The latter command was addressed to Barletti 
and Veronica, who, nothing loth to leave that 
presence, withdrew. It was the fifth evening 
after the day the incidents of which have been 
narrated in the preceding chapter. On return- 
ing home from the ship Sir John had taken to 
his bed, and had not since left it. He was in a 
strangely excited state, and fuller than usual of 
capricious ill humor. 

After Sir John had dismissed them from his 
bedside, Veronica and Barletti remained tete-a- 
tete in the large dimly-lighted saloon. No one 
observed them. They were free to remain to- 
gether as long as they chose. Sir John, far from 
displaying suspicion, seemed to desire Barletti’s 
presence in the house. But yet the prince made 
no attempt to profit by this opportunity of mak- 
ing love to the beautiful Veronica. She sat 
down silently, and with a disturbed countenance. 
He walked to the window, whose shutters were 
unclosed, and looked out into the moonlight. 
The oppression of Sir John’s looks and words 
weighed upon them both like a hot, stifling air. 

Veronica broke the silence. She spoke in a 
subdued voice, although there was, as she well 
knew, no human creature within ear-shot. 

“Cesare! Why don’t you speak to me? I 
feel so horribly unstrung. ” 

‘ ‘ Cara ! Y ou have been too much tried. You 
must try to be strong and composed. Coraggio. ” 


VERONICA. 


95 


“I hate such meaningless talk,” she replied, 
fretfully. “‘Coraggio!’ It is not courage I 
want. Courage Avon’t explain and make clear. 
Do you think, Cesare, that he is really — dying ?” 

“ He is undoubtedly very, very ill.” 

“There again! Meaningless, empty words. 
I know — we all know — that he is very, very ill. 
But I ask if you think the end is near ?” 

Cesare really loved her, and he was patient 
with her as real love is. He seated himself near 
her, and softly placed his hand upon her head. 

“Veronica mia,” he said, “I am not skilled 
in such signs. But it does seem to me that there 
is to-night a warning change in him.” 

Veronica shuddered and dreAv close to him, 
pressing her shoulder against his with the ges- 
ture, not of a lover, but of a little frightened 
child that seeks the comfort of human contact in 
the dark. 

“He must feel deeply the wrong he did you,” 
proceeded Cesare. “ It must be owned that he 
is doing what he can to save his soul. The 
testament he has made is a generous one. ” 

“Yes — I don’t know — ” 

“You don’t know ?” 

“ I — I — feel — I can not explain it; but I have 
a strange feeling as though he were fooling me 
to the last.” 

“Fancies, my child. What puts them into 
your head ?” 

“I can not explain it, I tell you. He looks 
at me sometimes almost fiendishly. And with 
a kind of exultation in his eyes too. Just noAV 
I almost believed his mind was wandering.” 

“ No, no ; he was in perfect possession of his 
senses,” said Barletti, hastily, feeling that this 
suggestion was an extremely imprudent one for 
Sir John’s legatee to make. “ He has done ev- 
ery thing with forethought and deliberation. 
The marriage on board ship was his own idea, 
was it not ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And on the first distant hint of his making 
a proHsion for you — which you uttered in ac- 
cordance with my suggestion — he met your wishes 
by telling you that he had already made a will 
with which his widow would have no reason to 
be dissatisfied ?” 

“Yes.” 

‘ ‘ The will is clearly expressed and duly wit- 
nessed, is it not?” 

“ He did not show it to me. He merely read 
a few words from it.” 

“But he stated what its purport Avas, in the 
presence of Paul, Avho had witnessed it. And 
its terms surpassed your expectations. Is all 
that not true ?” 

“Y — yes, I suppose so. Y^'es; it is true,” 
added Veronica, in a firmer tone. Barletti’s re- 
capitulation of the facts Avas reassuring her.^ She 
had, in truth, spoken at first Avith an indistinct 
hope of eliciting some such reassuring statement 
of the case. 

“ But,” she added, after a pause, during Avhich 
her memory had viAudly recalled certain of Sir 
John’s looks and Avords : “although all that is 
true, quite true, I can not help being made un- 
easy by his manner. Why should he do this for 
me if he hates me, as I most thoroughly believe 
he does ?” 

“ Hates you, Veronica ! What AA'ild folly !” 

“ No, no, no ; it is not Avild folly. It is sober 


sense,” pursued Veronica, speaking AA’ith vehe- 
mence, noAV that she had once begun to reA’eal 
the secret thought that Avas in her. “I haA'e 
long guessed it. I may say that I haA'e long 
known it. What love he ever felt for me has 
been OA'er this many a day. I ahvays knoAV 
Avhen people love me — always. And he hates 
you too. He is jealous of you. I haA’e seen 
his eyes, when he did not know that I saAV 
them, under the shadoAv of his lamp-screen on 
the little table. And I believe he set Paul to 
Avatch us. I do !” 

The strong conviction in her tone was not 
without its etfect on Barletti. But he ansAA’ered 
with the confident calmness of one who is re- 
butting an obvious absurdity, and with a slight 
nodding of his head up and doAvn : “ Well, it is 
the most original demonstration of hatred I ever 
heard of, to bestOAv his name and his fortune on 
you at the A’ery moment Avhen he is about to 
leave you free to enjoy both as you please. 
Most people Avould call such conduct affection- 
ate and generous. ” 

“Yes. And it is because I knoAV him to be 
incapable of either affection or generosity that I 
can not be easy.” 

“Veronica, that is morbid!” 

^ Well, you may say AA’hat you please, but I 
know that man means me no good. Do you 
remember AA’hat he said last night as Ave sat be- 
side his bed? Dio mio! Hoav it all comes 
back plainly to me. He said, ‘ Ah ! you are 
both young, and handsome, and healthy. How 
delightful it is to think of the years of happiness 
that stretch before you ! ’ And did you not see 
the diabolical sneer he gaA’e? Oh! Cesare, 
there is some evil to come, I am sure of it.” 

She wrung her hands tightly together, and be- 
gan to pace quickly up and down the room. 

“Veronica,” he said, after a minute’s con- 
sideration, “it maybe that you do not much 
AATong Sir John’s nature. And yet I am con- 
vinced you are mistaken in your conclusions. 
If he does not care for you he cares for himself, 
and the fear of death is a powerful motive to 
reparation.” 

“He does not belieA-e in reparation. He 
scoffs at CA’ery thing. He has no religion.” 

“But those are the very people to be afraid. 
I have knoAvn men Avho have never been to 
mass or to confession for tAventy years turn like 
soft Avax in the hands of the priests when there 
came any question of dying.” 

“Ah, in your church, perhaps. But AV’ith us 
it is different.” 

“And then, don’t you see, Veronica, that the 
struggle in his mind betAveen evil promptings 
and the desire to save his OAvn soul may pro- 
duce all the strange fluctuations you observe in 
his manner ?” 

She shook her head doubtfully, but she liked 
that her A’ague fears and suspicions should be 
combated. She leaned on this man Avho loved 
her. She had been right in her assertion that 
she ahvays knew Avhen she Avas loved. With 
AvhateA’er motive he had first sought to make 
himself pleasing in her eyes, she Avas unshaka- 
bly sure that noiu, at all eA’ents, he loved her for 
herself; and that Avere she destitute to-morroAV 
he Avould not desert her. And then, too, her 
apprehensions seemed less alarming noAv she had 
uttered them than they had appeared Avhile she 


96 


VERONICA. 


brooded over them silently. Perhaps Cesare 
was right, and she was wrong after all ! What 
flaw could there be in her fortunes ? Yes ; no 
doubt Cesare was right! She was very glad 
she had spoken to him so openly. Before they 
parted she took his head between her hands, 
and pressed her lips to his forehead. The ac- 
tion Avas little more than an expression of the 
relief to her mind which his word had brought : 
and partly it was the selfish instinctive clinging 
in peril to a clasping hand — the clinging of a 
child that knows no compunction in throwing 
all its weight of care and fear on to the patient 
willing shoulders of those who love it. 

The next day about noon Cesare de’ Barletti 
Avas breakfasting in one of the principal caffes 
in Naples, Avhen Mr. Frost Avalked in and took 
his seat at a small round table near him. 

“ Ah, Mr. Frost I So you are not gone then ?” 
said Barletti, shaking hands. This Avas a cere- 
mony he ncA'er omitted Avith an Englishman, 
concemng that to haA'e done so Avould haA’e 
been as great a solecism in good-manners as to 
decline the proffered pipe of a^ Turk. 

“No,” returned INIr. Frost. “I am not gone, 
as you see. The telegram came after all. I 
may be detained here another Aveek or so. I 
have not seen you these last days, prince.” 

“I have been noAAhere — noAvhere except to 
the house of a sick friend. He is dying, I fancy. 
Do you remember — ” Barletti suddenly checked 
his speech and dropped his coffee-cup AA'ith a 
clatter that brought the Avaiters hunting up. 
In the little momentary bustle his sudden pause 
and confusion escaped notice, as he fancied. 

Cesare had been on the point of mentioning 
that his sick friend Avas no other than the bride- 
groom Avhose marriage had taken place on board 
the Furihond, Avhen he remembered that Frost 
had spoken of “ Lady Gale.” If Frost supposed 
Veronica to be Sir John’s wife already at the 
time of their conA*ersation at the AvindoAV of the 
hotel, it Avould be injudicious, to say the least, to 
proclaim that she had only been married that 
very morning. Besides, Veronica had so shrunk 
from haA-ing the date of the marriage knoAvn. It 
might be — nay, it was probable — that Mr. Frost 
had ah'eady heard of it. But at all events he 
(Cesare) Avould say no AA'ord on the subject. Mr. 
Frost had clearly perceived that the dropping of 
the coffee-cup had been a mere feint on Barletti’s 
part to divert attention from his unfinished speech. 
But it Avas a matter of considerable indifference 
to Mr. Frost AA'hether Prince Cesare de’ Barletti 
AA’ere close or candid in his communications, noAv 
tliat the business Avhich had brought the tAvo men 
into contact was satisfactorily concluded. He 
therefore began to chat easily and amusingly as 
he sipped his coffee, and Barletti listened Avith 
lazy satisfaction. 

Presently he obserA’ed, during a pause in the 
talk: “What a devil of a pace those felloAvs 
drive at ! The hackney cabmen, I mean. Just 
listen hoAV one is tearing up the street at this 
moment. Neck or nothing ! ” 

“Yes,” replied Mr. Frost, “I often Av^onder 
that in your teeming streets more accidents do 
not happen. This felloAV, Avhoever he may be, is 
coming hei'e, by the sound. ByJoA^e! What’s 
the matter ?” 

The exclamation aa’us elicited by the sudden 


pulling up of an open cab at the door, and the 
hurried descent therefrom of a pale, frightened 
servant in an English livery. The man looked 
about him eagerly, and elboAved his AA’ay through 
the croAvd of coffee-drinkers Avith a disregard of 
their con\’enience Avhich Avould have brought 
doAvn considerable Avrath on his head had it not 
been for the expression of his countenance, Avhich 
aroused curiosity and kept resentment in abey- 
ance. 

“Oh, there you are, signor principe!” ex- 
claimed the man, catching sight of Barletti ; 
“I’A'e been half oA'er Naples looking for you! 
At last I heard you Avere here. Will you come 
at once to miladi ? Here’s the cab Avaiting. ” 
“What is it, Pietro?” asked Barletti, rising 
Avith a face yet paler than the servant’s. 

He had no reason to fear for Veronica, and 
yet his unreasonable lover-like apprehension could 
fix on no other object. 

“My master, signor principe, is dying or dead. 
I don’t expect to find him aliA’e Avhen Ave get 
there, and miladi she’s been falling from one 
fainting fit into another. And as soon as she 
had consciousness she sent for you. ” 

Barletti seized his hat and rushed to the door. 
Before he stepped into the eab he called out to 
Frost, “Let me see you this evening! I may 
have business. Something important! Come 
to the Palazzo Dinori at six o’clock, if you possi- 
bly can, and ask for me ! ” 

Then Barletti got into the cab, and Avas AA'hirled 
aAvay Avith a mighty Avhooping and clattering of 
hoofs. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“my BELOA'ED AA’IFE.” 

Mr. Frost called at the Palazzo Dinori a 
feAV minutes after six o’clock that evening. He 
Avas admitted immediately by the porter, Avho had 
been told to expect him, and Avas ushered into a 
small, sumptuously -furnished room, overladen 
AA'ith ornament. It AA-as Veronica’s boudoir. 

INIr. Frost had not come to the palazzo Avithout 
trying to gain some information respecting the 
person Avho liA'ed there. A rich Englishman — 
very, veiy rich ! A millionaire at the least. 
Milordo Gale. That AA'as the report of the land- 
lord of Mr. Frost’s hotel. His cook AA’as a supe- 
rior person — a man of talent — a cordon bleu ! 
The landlord had the honor of a slight acquaint- 
ance Avith that distinguished artist, Avho some- 
times cracked a bottle of “Lacrima” or fine 
Capri Avith him in his priA'ate room. As to Mi- 
lordo Gale — ah, yes, he Avas rich. DiaA'olo! 
Poor men did not enjoy the serAuces of such a 
cook. The landlord had knoAvn the latter long, 
and esteemed him highly. He had been chef de 
cuisine to the Russian embassador, years ago : in 
the old days, you understand. 

IMr. Frost Avould perhaps not haA’e complied 
with Barletti’s request to go to the Palazzo 
Dinori so promptly had he not felt a considera- 
ble amount of curiosity respecting its inmates. 
He sat doAvn in the luxurious room, and con- 
trasted it Avith poor Lady Tallis’s shabby lodg- 
ing in GoAver Street. That thought brought 
others in its train : other thoughts of a painful 
and harassing nature. His promise to Zillah 
LockAvood had not yet been redeemed. And 


VERONICA. 


97 


Hugh was growing more and more headstrong. 
It was more than a fortnight since he had had 
any private letter from England, and the last had 
been from his wife — a tissue of complaints and 
demands for money from beginning to end. INIr. 
Erost’s i^rivate meditations were not soothing. 
They were a bitter cud to chew. So with a 
wrench of his mind, and a movement of his body 
as though he were shaking a tangible weight from 
his shoulders, he turned his thoughts to other 
matters. Things had got to that point with him 
now when a man tells himself that it is no use 
thinking of his troubles : thinking will mend no- 
thing. Some turn of luck must come — may 
come, at all events. And if not — ? If not, why 
still it is no use thinking. The devil must have 
his own way ! 

Mr. Frost had not sat ten minutes in the bou- 
doir before Barletti came in. 

“Caro amico,” said he, grasping the lawyer’s 
hand hard, “you are come! Thanks, many 
thanks. I have great need of you. ” 

Barletti had never addressed Mr. Frost as 
“caro amico” before. 

“What can I do for you?” asked the latter, 
observing Barletti’s face attentively, but not os- 
tentatiously. 

“It is all over here. That man — Sir John 
Gale—” 

“Your friend?” 

“ My friend ! Yes, yes, my friend ! The most 
unheard-of cold-blooded villain — ! Maria San- 
tissima, forgive me ! He has gone to meet his 
deserts.” 

“Humph!” ejaculated Mr. Frost, with closed 
lips and an indescribable inflection in his voice. 
“//a5 he ? That is to say that he is — ?” 

“Dead.” 

“Oh! Yes. I see. Was it sudden ?” 

“ One can hardly say s'o after all these months 
of wasting away. But yet at the last it was sud- 
den. It was a hideous sight to see. When I 
got here they took me straight into his room. 
I turned sick and faint as a girl,” said Barletti, 
growing pale, and shuddering at the recollec- 
tion. 

“How ? What was the hideous sight ?” 

“ He had broken a blood-vessel, and was lying 
there just as he had died. They had touched 
nothing. It was honible !” 

The impressionable Italian hid his face Avith 
his hands, as though to shut out the remem- 
brance of the scene. 

“Who was with him? Hoav Avas the cause 
of death ascertained ?” 

“The tAvo physicians who attended him ar- 
rived just after it happened. He had been raA’- 
ing in a fit of maniacal fury. That killed him, 
there’s no doubt.” 

A thought occurred to IMr. Frost. If Sir John 
Gale had died intestate his AvidoAV Avould un- 
doubtedly be a Avealthy Avoman. In any case 
his death Avould benefit her, for there were set- 
tlements under Avhich she Avould have at least 
such an income as befitted her rank. Lady 
Tallis Gale’s niece Avould now be in very differ- 
ent circumstances from those she had been in 
hitherto. Maud Avould be Lady Tallis’s heiress 
of course. And then — then that might make a 
difference in the prospects of Hugh LockAvood ! 
The thought passed through Mr. Frost’s brain 
so quickly that there Avas no perceptible pause 


before he said, “You Avill alloAv me to suggest 
that you should at once telegraph to England. 
Perhaps you have already done so ?” 

Barletti Avas resting his elboAvs on the table 
and alternately bringing his open palms together 
on his forehead, and slowly separating them A\'ith 
a stroking moA^ement toAvard his ears. He made 
a little negative gesture Avith his head, in ansAver 
to Mr. Frost’s question. 

“You asked me to come here, prince, in such 
a manner that I concluded you stood in need of 
professional adA'ice from me. If I Avas Avrong, 
you Avill forgive me for reminding you that my 
time is precious, and that if there is no service I 
can render you I must AvithdraAV.” 

“No, no, don’t go! Pray don’t go! I do 
Avant you. I have the greatest need of you ! I 
have been half distracted all day.* More for her 
sake, God knoAvs, than my OAvn !” 

“For — her sake ?” 

“ I am her cousin. I haA'e a right to be near 
her and protect her. Her mother Avas Man’a 
Stella de’ Barletti. There is no other relative 
in Italy to take care of her.” 

“Prince, I do not in the least doubt your right 
to take care of the lady in question. But — Avho 
is 

“ Do you remember that morning, noAv nearly, 
a Aveek ago, Avhen AA^e saw Sir John Gale being 
roAved ashore from the English ship ?” 

“Certainly. Ah, I see. Yes, yes; I begin 
to understand. There AA'as a lady AA'ith him — a 
young lady as it seemed to me. Humph !” 

“Yes, that was she. She Avas in a dreadful 
state this morning Avhen I came here. She had 
been fainting, falling from one SAVoon into an- 
other, and that was best for her, provera anima 
soflferente! For AA'hen she became conscious 
again her misery Avas terrible to witness.” 

“ May I ask Avhat Avas the occasion of the 
lady’s agitation ? Did they permit her to see 
the scene Avhich so affected you ? That Avas in- 
judicious !” 

“Oh yes! She saAv it all. She has not yet 
been able to giA^e me a connected account of it ; 
but from Avhat she said, and from Avhat Paul said 
— Paul Avas that man’s valet — I haA’e ascertained 
that the scene must have been appalling.” 

Mr. Frost Avas secretly very much surprised 
at Barletti’s acknoAvledgment that the beautiful 
young AA’oman Avhose position in Sir John Gale’s 
household could not be doubtful Avas his cousin. 
The young prince’s visits to Palazzo Dinori, and 
his devotion to the lovely Avoman Avho inhabited 
it, Avere Avell-known and much-discussed topics 
of gossip in Naples, as they had been at Flor- 
ence — a fact of which Barletti Avas as innocent as 
a child. For there are minds Avhich, although 
shreAvd enough to judge their neighbors, can 
never conceive that the same standard is natu- 
rally applied to measure them. Some breath of 
this gossip had floated by Mr. Frost, and had re- 
mained in his memory. Veronica AA’as usually 
spoken of as “La Gale,” a mode of designating 
her Avhich conveyed no idea of Avifehood to Mr. 
Frost’s ears. Mr. Frost Avas not unacquainted 
Avith foreign life. He had lived in Paris, and 
called himself a man of the Avbrld. But he did 
not quite understand Italian manners ; nor Avas 
he aware that their social morality is presided 
over by a stern goddess called Decorum, to out- 
rage Avhose laws is a blasphemy condemned by 


88 


VERONICA. 


ail well-bred persons. It would not sting an 
Italian man of quality to talk to him about 
‘•whited sepuiehres.” There must be sepul- 
chres, and the least you can do is to whitewash 
them ! 

“Well,” said Mr. Erost, shrugging his shoul- 
ders, “ the poor signora ought not to have been 
allowed to witness such a scene. But I suppose 
it will pass away. Did Sir John make any pro- 
vision for her ?” 

“It is on that point,” said Barletti, changing 
color, “ that we wish to consult you. She has 
been the victim of a base deception. But I be- 
lieve that Providence has not forsaken her. This 
man in his will leaves every thing absolutely — ” 

“ His will !” cried the lawyer, suddenly on the 
alert. “He left a will ? Are you sure ?” 

“Most sure.. I saw it only last evening.” 

“ Last evening ! You read it?” 

“ No ; I can not say that I read it. I should 
not have understood it all, being in English, 
tliough I might have made out a word or two. 
But he told us the contents in presence of one 
of the witnesses — Paul, the valet I spoke of just 
now. ” 

“And this will leaves every thing absolutely, 
you say, to — ?” 

“ To his wife.” 

“ To — his — wife !” 

“ ‘To his beloved wife. ’ Those are the words. ” 

“By Jove !” breathed out Mr. Erost in a whis- 
per of amazement. “ Why then your cousin will 
not get a penny, not a soldo, not a centime! 
Unless — stop ! was there a codicil ? Any other 
legacies ?” 

“There was nothing more. And it was all 
meant for Veronica. She must have it! She 
was his wife when he died. ” 

“My dear prince,” said Mr. Frost, in a low, 
steady voice, laying his hand on the other man’s 
arm, “you had best be frank with me. It is 
useless to call in a doctor unless you will tell 
him all your symptoms. Some folks try to cheat 
even the doctor ! But that is not found to result 
in a cure very often. This lady, for whom, as 
your relative, I profess every respect, was not, 
according to Englisli law, the wife of Sir John 
Gale. And English law is terribly inflexible and 
unromantic. I don’t think Phryne herself would 
have a chance in the Court of Chancery — which 
is not without its good side when you don’t hap- 
pen to be Phryne ! ” 

“ Phryne ! What do you mean, Sir ? What 
are you talking of? I say that my cousin Ve- 
ronica is Lady Tallis Gale, and can be proved to 
be so in any court in Europe. She was married 
on board the English Queen’s ship Furibond on 
Tuesday morning.” 

“What!” shouted Mr. Frost, springing to his 
feet. “ He did that ? Then he was a bigamist. I 
tell you his lawful wife is living. I know her M’ell ! ” 

“No, you are wrong !” said a low voice which 
startled them both. 

The door communicating with the adjoining 
room, which was “miladi's” dressing-room, was 
opened, and Veronica stood in the doorway. 
She was as white as the muslin wrapper that 
was folded round lier. Her hair fell in disorder 
over her shoulders. Her eyes were swollen and 
heavy. But in the midst of her very real ab- 
sorption in the trouble that had fallen on her, she 
was not altogether indifferent to the effect she 


should produce by her appearance. And it was 
as striking as she could have desired it to be. 

“Angelo mio!” exclaimed Barletti, running 
to support her with tender sympathy, “ why didst 
thou venture here? Thou art too feeble, my 
dearest !” 

“Leave me alone, Cesare. I can stand and 
walk by myself. Look at this, Mr. Erost!” she 
added in English, holding out a letter to him as 
she spoke. 

“You speak — you are English?” murmured 
Mr. Erost, more and more bewildered, but tak- 
ing the letter and opening it. 

His eyes had not mastered two lines of its con- 
tents before he gave a violent start, and the let- 
ter fluttered from his hand on the table while he 
gazed searchingly at Veronica, with all his keen 
wits about him. 

“That killed him,” said Veronica, bitterly. 

‘ ‘ He had thought to betray and to trap me. 
And the rage of disappointment was more than 
he could bear.” 

“But,” said Mr. Frost, all his professional in- 
terest aroused in the case, “we must be careful 
to assure ourselves that he did not succeed in be- 
traying and trapping you ! ” 

She was about to interrupt him impetuously, 
when he held up a warning hand to check her. 

“Stay a moment! This bears date — ay, the 
same day. Tuesday last, was it not ? Then this 
much I see plainly — it will all depend xipon the 
hour. And now tell me your whole story. Have 
no more reserves than if I were your father con- 
fessor. The only chance I have of helping you 
is to know the whole truth. ” 

“Go away, Cesare,” said Veronica, after a 
pause. “I would rather speak to Mr. Frost 
alone. I will send for you by-and-by.” 

“Do not let her tire herself, poverina,” said 
Barletti, moving reluctantly away. He turned 
when he had reaalied the door, and, coming back, 
took her hand and kissed it with a touching, 
humble tenderness. Then he w'as gone. 

The letter which Veronica had handed to Mr. 
Frost ran thus : 

London, March 5, 186-. 

Sir John, — It is my painful duty to inform 
you of the decease of your respected w'ife. Lady 
Tallis Gale, who expired, at her apartments in 
Gower Street, yesterday morning. Her lady- 
ship’s niece. Miss Desmond, w'as w’ith her to the 
last. Awaiting any instructions with wdiich you 
may be pleased to honor me, and with my re- 
spectful condolence on the sad event, 

I remain. Sir John, your very humble servant, 

Adam Lane. 

To Sir John Tallis Gale, Bart. 

P.S. Her ladyship’s disorder was consumption 
of the lungs. The arrangements for the funeral 
have been made, in your absence, by Miss Des- 
mond’s directions. Her ladyship’s relative. Sir 
Thomas Delaney of Delaney, has been invited to 
attend. A. L. 


CHAPTER XV. 

■WHAT SAYS THE LAW? 

Mr. Frost's cross-examination elicited more 
truth from Veronica than she had intended to 
tell, or than she was aware she had told. She 


VERONICA. 


99 


had meant, indeed, to nan-ate the main facts of 
her case as they were ; but at the same time to 
present them in such a manner as to gain her 
hearer’s sympathies wholly for herself. She 
could not have spoken to the raggedest laza- 
rone without trying to make an effect; only in 
different cases she adopted different means for 
the attainment of the same end. 

Mr. Frost read her like a book. For Mr. 
Frost’s clear judgment was not dazzled by the 
glamour of her beauty. He was infatuatedly in 
love with another woman. He thought Georgi- 
na far handsomer and more stately than this girl. 
And how superbly indifferent she was to his feel- 
ings ! He knew that her heart was as hard as 
the nether millstone. But he had taken the 
first dowuAvard step in his life to win her. 

When a man like Mr. Frost has done so much 
to gain any object, he does not easily cease to 
prize it. That would be to acknowledge his 
whole life a failure; and Mr. Frost hated fail- 
ure, and, more deeply still, he hated the ac- 
Jcnoivledgment of failure. 

The natural bias of his mind being toward 
hard judgments, and his professional experience 
having taught him to expect evil, he had at first 
been more than half inclined to suspect Veronica 
of having known all along that Sir John was a 
married man, and of having been an accomplice 
in the commission of bigamy. But at last he 
satisfied himself that she had been duped. 

“But still I do not quite understand why 
he should have run that risk,” said Mr. Frost, 
thoughtfully. 

‘ ‘ He ran no risk. His doctors had told him 
that he could not live a month. And I — I — ” 
You importuned him, I suppose?” 

“I did not importune Sir John. I never im- 
portuned him. And as to our man-iage — he was 
bound by the most solemn obligations to make 
me his wife.” 

“ Obligations which he never could have looked 
upon as binding, in the least ; since he knew, al- 
though you did not, that his real wife was living. 
No, no the ‘ solemn obligations’ had nothing to 
do with it.” 

“ But I had threatened to leave him, unless he 
did me right and justice.” 

“No doubt he would not have liked that. His 
pride (to speak of no other feeling) would have 
sufficed to make that painful to him. But, ex- 
cuse me, that threat would scarcely have had 
any influence so long as he thought it a vain one ! ” 

“It was not a vain threat ; and he knew it was 
not. I could have left him, and I would have 
done so. I should have appealed to my cousin. 
Prince Cesare, for assistance and protection.” 

“Aj^ ay, that^ indeed! Jealousy, and re- 
sentment, and bitterness, and envy of the folks 
who are going to live after he was dead ! Yes ; 
and then he secured peace and quietness for him- 
self at the last, and prevented your leaving him.” 

“And he thought he was snaring me!” said 
Veronica, her breath coming quickly, and her 
splendid brows creasing themselves near togeth- 
er. “He thought I was his dupe and his vic- 
tim. He meant me to awaken to unspeakable 
shame and misery after he was dead. And he 
thought he was preparing an overwhelming disap- 
pointment for Cesare, too ! Oh, it was devilish !” 

Mr. Frost declined to enter into the question 
of Sir John’s devilry. 


“It is one of the strangest stories altogether 
that ever came under my notice, ” said he. “ And 
we lawyers, of course, come in the way of strange 
stories ; or they come in ours. ” 

Veronica had had much to learn as well as to 
narrate. It will be remembered that she had 
received no communication from her old home 
since her flight. And almost the bitterest drop 
in her cup was the discovery of tlie identity of 
Sir John’s forsaken wife with Maud’s aunt, Ladv 
Tallis. 

It was so intolerably galling to her to think 
that her story must now be known and canvassed 
by all the people she knew ! Had Sir John left 
a lawful wife in Spain, or Algiers, or Australia, 
there might (or so Veronica fancied) have been 
some hope that the world she cared to shine in 
would never have been made acquainted with 
the real circumstances. By skillful management 
they might have been kept back. But now there 
was no hope of that. Lady Tallis had belonged 
to a well-known family. People like Miss Betsy 
Boyce, whose aftei'-dinner gossip at Lowater now 
came back vividly to Veronica’s mind, would re- 
call all the old story and industriously piece it 
on to the new one. It would be the town talk ! 
The thought was distracting. For in propor- 
tion as Veronica could never be entirely happy 
without an audience to witness her happiness, 
so was the idea that she must have spectators 
of her humiliation and misfortune intolerable to 
her. 

Evil that could be hidden ’did not seem so 
evil to Veronica. 

She had clung during so many months to the 
hope of some day returning to England as Lady 
Gale, throughout the gradual progress of Sir 
John’s illness she had suffered such fluctuations 
of hope and fear, that she felt as though some 
compensation were due to her. 

Had she not been injured ? Had she not suf- 
fered ? As to others — what had others done for 
her ? The good people had drawn off from her. 
(And were they so much better than she was, 
pray ? — except Maud ? Maud was good ! She 
understood now, how it was that Maud had 
seemed to desert her, and had never answered 
her letter. But then Maud was different from 
any one else. Her aunt must have prevented 
her from writing.) And as for the bad people, 
they had been desperately bad to her. 

These thoughts passed through her brain as 
she sat with her hands clasped before her, lean- 
ing back in the easy-chair wherein Cesare’s care 
had placed her. And she looked full of a noble 
melancholy, with her dark eyes fixed abstracted- 
ly on vacancy, and her rich lips apart. 

If Mr. Frost had seen her portrait faithfully 
reproducing that look and attitude, he would 
have formed all kinds of exalted ideas about the 
original. But Mr. Frost had fathomed her na- 
ture, as he flattered himself. She could cast no 
sorcery over him ! And yet — and yet it is cer- 
tain that he would not have behaved to her quite 
in the same manner if she had been fat, or freck- 
led, or had lost her front teeth. 

“ Veronica ! ” said Cesare, timidly entering the 
room, “you promised to send for me. It is so 
long ago. I have been so anxious. Let me stay 
with you. You see, Mr. Frost, how exhausted 
she is. Ought she not to take some rest ?” 

“I had been resting since two o’clock, until 


100 


VERONICA. 


Mr. Frost came,’' she answered, languidly. “It 
is not bodily rest I want !” 

“You understand, my friend,” pursued Bar- 
letti, addressing Mr. Frost, “that I am Miladi 
Gale’s nearest male relative in Italy ; and that I 
am, therefore, the proper person to give her ev- 
ery assistance and protection in the position in 
which she is so unexpectedly placed.” 

“ Oh, undoubtedly, prince. Ahem ! Your 
cousin naturally looks on you as standing in the 
place of a brother to her. ” 

The most subtle of mocking smiles lurked 
about the lines of Mr. Frost’s mouth as he spoke. 

Cesare, with a grave bow, accepted the posi- 
tion assigned to him by the Englishman’s phrase : 
wholly unconscious of its irony. But Veronica 
answered at once with disdainful frankness : 

“ Not so, Mr. Frost. I do not look on Prince 
Cesare de’ Barletti as a brother. My cousin he 
is truly, and as such I have a claim on his pro- 
tection. But it will be as well for you to under- 
stand at once that he is, moreover, my promised 
husband; and that our interests are identical. 
It will, doubtless, not surprise you that I do not 
think it necessary to condescend to any hypocrisy 
of grief at my widowhood. The prince and I 
do not hesitate to repose full confidence in you 
as our legal adviser. ” 

Cesare took her hand and kissed it gratefully, 
but he was a little startled, and one might al- 
most say, shocked. Why be so outspoken ? Of 
course Mr. Frost understood their real position. 
But, why speak 'of it ? At such a moment it 
seemed almost indecorous. Of course she could 
not be supposed to mourn for Sir John Gale, but 
why not make-believe a little, if even only to the 
extent of saying nothing? 

Mr. Frost looked at Veronica with a good deal 
of undisguised admiration, and no little secret 
surprise. She had more spirit and cleverness 
than he had supposed ! He had not quite fath- 
omed her character after all ! 

And Veronica was perfectly sensible of the 
impression she had made. 

“I suppose,” she said, after a little pause, 
“ that the best thing will be for me to go to Lon- 
don at once ?” 

“It will be well to do so as soon as possi- 
ble,” said Mr. Frost. 

“ Our good friend has no doubt of your get- 
ting your rights?” said Barletti, glancing from 
the lawyer to Veronica. 

“Prince, we must speak to the point. The 
fact is, that the legality of your cousin’s marriage 
will, in my judgment, depend entirely on the 
hour at which Lady Tallis Gale expired. If she 
died before the ceremony at Naples took place, 
the marriage is good. If she survived that cer- 
emony — even by five minutes — !” 

Mr. Frost finished his sentence by an express- 
ive shrug. There was a dead silence. 

At length Cesare said, “ But the will, the prop- 
erty ; that will be my cousin’s ? It must be !” 

Mr. Frost slowly shook his head. “I have 
not seen the documents, but neither have you, 
nor has your cousin. And I do not disguise 
from you that, taking all the circumstances of 
the case into consideration, I think it likely that 
Sir John made that will prior to the ceremony 
on board the Furihond, intending really to be- 
queath his property to his real — to his first — 
wife.” 


“It would be monstrous! Infamous! L’’n- 
heard of!” exclaimed Barletti, in much excite- 
ment. 

‘ ‘ He was capable of it, ” said V eronica. Then 
she turned sharply on Barletti. 

“Did I not tell you? Did I not warn you 
last night ? I told you that I was sure all was 
not clear — that he meant to fool and delude me !” 

Cesare looked blankly from one to the other. 
“Then,” said he, at length, “my cousin will 
have nothing ? Absolutely nothing ?” 

“ Gently, prince,” replied Mr. Frost. “You 
go too fast. The whole matter turns upon the 
legality of your cousin's marriage. If that mar- 
riage were good, any will made previous to it is 
null and void — mere waste paper. Marriage 
vitiates any former testamentary dispositions.” 

Veronica drew a long breath, and raised her 
eyes to the lawyer’s face. 

‘ ‘ Ah ! ” she exclaimed, in a low voice ; “then, 
if she — that woman — his — his wife, died before 
the hour of my marriage — ?” 

“In that case your mar’riage was legal; Sir 
John must be held to have died intestate ; and 
you, as his widow (there being no child to in- 
herit), will take your legal share of the personal 
property. No inconsiderable fortune, I appre- 
hend.” 

“But,” persisted Cesare, who could not re- 
linquish the idea that Sir John had meant to 
make some kind of restitution, and to whom the 
idea of a dying man doing deliberate evil was 
horrible: “but I think he did mean to leave 
Veronica the money !” 

“You think! Bah! You are mad!” cried 
Veronica, in a tone of exquisite irritation, throw- 
ing herself into a chair. She had been pafling 
up and down. Her face was worn and haggard, 
her eyes were swollen, her hands fevered. 

‘“rhe only way to decide the question,” said 
Mr. Frost, “would be to see the will. Who has 
the custody of it ?” 

“ Paul — the valet I spoke of — has the keys of 
his master’s desk in his own possession. The 
will was locked up in a drawer of the desk in our 
presence,” replied Barletti. 

“Ay! You consider this Paul to be*trust- 
worthy?” asked Mr. Frost. 

“I will tell you what I think would be the 
best thing,” said Cesare. “If Mr. Frost would 
undertake to see us remove the document from 
the place where it was put last night, and exam- 
ine it, and then seal it up, and keep it in his 
•own possession, until we go to England ; that 
would be quite satisfactory.” 

Mr. Frost had no objection to do so, and at 
Barletti’s request rang the bell to summon Paul. 

“Cesare,” whispered Veronica, as the lawyer 
turned to the other side of the room to reach the 
bell, “ I need not — it will not be necessary for 
me — I — I can not go in there !” 

‘ ‘ My Treasure, I think it would be best if you 
could stand at the door for a moment even ! It 
will be but for a moment.” 

Barletti did not know but that the omission 
of some trifling precaution might imperil the pos- 
session of the property. He had a vague idea 
that the law was a ticklish and complicated ma- 
chine, something like a conjuror’s paraphernalia, 
in the handling of which great nicety and cun- 
ning were required, lest by the touching of a 
wrong spring, or the non-touching of a right one, 


‘ V' 


VERONICA. 


101 


the instrument should go wrong, and produce 
quite xmexpected results. He really had faith 
in the justice of Veronica’s cause, and deemed 
that it would be a crying shame to deprive her 
of the money that he persisted in believing had 
been bequeathed to her. 

But none the more for that faith would he 
have neglected any wile that the wiliest lawyer 
could have suggested to him. 

Blunt -fingered Honesty will never pull the 
yards of ribbon out of the conjuror’s box. That 
is not blunt-fingered Honesty’s business. 

The servant who answered the bell was told to 
send Paul to the boudoir immediately. 

“Wait for me an instant,” said Veronica to 
Frost and Barletti. “ I — I Avill come.” 

She took a lamp from the table, and went into 
her dressing-room, shutting the door behind her. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE WILL. 

» 

On the toilet-table in the dressing-room stood 
a large dressing-case. It was open, so as to dis- 
play ostentatiously its rich gold fittings and vio- 
let velvet lining. 

Veronica selected one of the crystal bottles it 
contained, and turned its contents into a drink- 
ing-goblet ; but only a drop or two dripped out. 
The liquid it had contained was eau de cologne. 
She poured a little water into the goblet, and 
drank it off ; but there was scarcely enough eau 
de cologne to flavor the water. 

Impatiently she searched about, opening an- 
other case that stood near, and then shaking a 
wicker-covered flask that lay uncorked on a side- 
table. It was quite empty. 

After a minute’s hesitation she took up the 
lamp again, and hastened veiy noiselessly through 
her bedroom into a corridor, and so to the din- 
ing-room. The large room was empty. The 
cloth was still spread. The plates, dishes, and 
glasses were just as they had been left after din- 
ner on the preceding evening, when Veronica 
and Cesare had dined tete-h-tete, before the mak- 
ing of Sir John’s will. The machine-like regu- 
larity of the household service had been terribly 
interrupted since then. 

The air was close, and there w’as a faint sick- 
ening smell of fruit, and of the lees of stale wine 
in the room. 

Veronica peered about, holding her lamp up 
so as to throw its light here and there in the great 
shadowy space, and moving with a kind of 
stealthy hurry. On the side-board stood a row 
of bottles and decanters. She examined them 
one by one. They were mostly uncorked, and 
some were nearly empty. On the ground beside 
the side-board was a large plated ice-pail, and in 
it was a small bottle of Champagne. She set 
down her lamp, knelt on the floor, and took out 
the bottle all dripping from the melted ice. It 
was corked, and she had no means of opening it. 
For a moment she listened intently, turning her 
head toward the main door of the saloon. There 
was no sound to be heard. Then all at once she 
rose, seized a tumbler from the table, and broke 
off the neck of the bottle by striking it sharply 
across the rim of the ice-pail. The foaming 
wine poured out over the floor, and over her 


hands, and some of it half filled the tumbler. 
She drank it desperately, as though it had been 
some draught on which her life depended. Then 
having thrown the broken flask back into the ice- 
pail and replaced the tumbler on the table, she 
hastened back breathlessly to her dressing-room. 

Her going and return had occupied but a few 
minutes. In her confused haste she was hardly 
conscious how long it was since she had left the 
boudoir. But when she re-entered it, Paul had 
only just made his appearance in presence of the 
two gentlemen. 

“You have the key of Sir John Gale’s desk, 
Paul, have you not ?” said Barletti. 

“Of the desk that stands in his bedchamber? 
Yes, Signor Principe.” 

“We wish to open it to take out the testament 
which your master read to us last night, and 
which you signed.” 

Paul very quietly raised his left hand, and put 
the thumb and forefinger of it into his Avaistcoat 
pocket. Having done so he made no further 
movement, but stood looking graA'ely and silently 
at Barletti. 

“Well,” said the latter, impatiently, “where 
is the key ?” 

“It is here, illustrissimo,” said Paul, very re- 
spectfully, but still not attempting to produce the 
key. 

Barletti colored Avith anger. He had never 
liked Paul, having deriA'ed a prejudice against 
him from Veronica; and the gteady non-comiJi- 
ance of the man Avas irritating. 

“I think you need a lesson. Signor Paolo 
Paoli,” said Barletti, haughtily; “3"ou do not 
quite understand your position in this house- 
hold. I recommend you to give up the key at 
once, and to refrain from any attempt at inso- 
lence.” 

‘ ‘ Insolence, Signor Principe ! ” exclaimed Paul, 
genuinely shocked at the accusation. ‘ ‘ Pardon, 
illustrissimo, I never Avas insolent in my life. I 
knoAv m}" duty to my superiors. But — ” 

‘ ‘ The man has some scruple, some hesitation, 
in giving up the key; is that it?” asked Mr. 
Frost, Avho had been Avatching both the inter- 
locutors attentively. 

“Yes, Sir,” replied Paul immediately, in En- 
glish. “I haA^e a scruple. I humbly demand 
the pardon of Prince Cesare; but you see, Sir, 

I AA'^as always a faithful domestic of Sir John 
Gale. And Sir John Gale left me, as I may 
say, in charge of many things. Now, Prince 
Cesare demands to haA'e my master’s Avill. 
Prince Cesare” (Paul made a deferential boAv 
in Barletti’s direction every time he mentioned 
his name) “Avas doubtless a respected friend of 
my master; but not a brother, not a cousin, 
not a nephcAV, not any relative at all, of my 
master. ” 

“No; that is quite true, Paul,” said Mr. 
Frost, gently nodding his head. 

“ AVell then, Sir ; you see, hoAv can I giA’e up 
my master’s testament to one aa^Iio has no right — 
3’ou see. Sir ?” 

“ Paul’s neAv-born nicety of scrupulous honor 
Avould be diA’erting, if it Avere not impertinent,” 
said Veronica. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks 
Avere flushed, her face had lost its dragged and 
Aveary lines. 

Paul did not look at her, but he made a little 
deprecating gesture Avith his head and shoulders. 


102 


VERONICA. 


and stood there with the mild, melancholy obsti- 
nacy of a dumb beast. 

“Pardon me,” Mr. Frost put in. “Allow 
me one moment. I must say that I respect our 
friend Paul’s scruples. But, Paul, a proper and 
fit person to have possession of Sir John Gale’s 
will is his widow ; is it not ?” 

“ His — widow. Sir ?’’ 

“This lady. Lady Gale. It is on her behalf 
that we wish to see the w’ill. You know' the 
contents of it, do you not ?” 

“ Not altogether. Sir. I was at the other end 
of the bedchamber when Sir John was speaking 
to miladi and the Signor Principe, and Sir John’s 
voice W'as very low'; very low indeed, Sir.” 

‘ ‘ But you had previously signed the will as a 
W'itness, I am told.” 

“ Yes, Sir, I was witness ; but my master did 
not inform me what was in the will.” 

“And W'as there no other witness but your- 
self?” 

“There was yet another, Sir. Sir John did 
not like that any of his own servants should be 
witness, so he told me to get a loyal person to 
sign the testament. Sir John wished he should 
be English, that other person. So I found a 
man who had brought horses here for a gentle- 
man ; and this man was going back to England ; 
and before he w'ent, I asked him one evening to 
supper with me, and then Sir John signed the 
testament, and I signed it, and the other witness 
signed it. The man can be found. Sir. Sir John 
made him leave his name and address in my care, 
and I have them.” 

Every word that Paul uttered fed Veronica’s 
rising indignation. 

Barletti understood very little of what W'as 
being said ; but he watched Veronica’s face, and 
reflected its expression unconsciously. 

“Ha! Yes, yes; very systematic,” muttered 
Mr. Frost. Then he asked aloud, “How long 
is this ago, Paul ?” 

“About a fortnight ago. Sir. The Signor 
Principe may remember the date. It was three 
days after the morning when I saw him and mi- 
ladi in the Villa Reale.” 

“Ah!” ejaculated Mr. Frost. “That’s de- 
cisive. A fortnight ago. There may^ however, 
be a codicil added later.” 

Veronica’s mind w'as less impressed by this 
fact than by the other one admitted by Paul, 
that he had watched her and Barletti in the 
Villa Reale. 

“You have the audacity to confess — ” she 
broke out in high excitement. But Mr. Frost 
stopped her. 

“Pray, Madam,” he said, gravely, “do not 
let us allow anger to enter into our discussion 
of this matter.” 

There w'as a short silence. 

At length Paul said, bluntly, addressing Mr. 
Frost : “ Were you a friend of my master’s, Sir ? 
Did you know him well ?” 

“ I am an English lawyer, Paul. My name is 
Frost. You have heard my name mentioned 
here. You have, eh? Well, I am that same 
Mr. Frost. I did not know Sir John Gale per- 
sonally; but you may be sure that in allow'ing 
your master’s will to be inspected in my pres- 
ence you are running no risk of failing in your 
duty.” 

l\aul looked somewhat reassured, though he 


still hesitated. “May I say one word to you. 
Sir ?” he whispered. 

Mr. Frost stepped with him outside the door, 
which Paul closed and held in his hand while he 
spoke. 

“Sir,” said he, “she is not his wife. You 
see, I knew it all along, but it was not for me 
to interfere. How could I ? I am but a do- 
mestic. But the parents — the relations, I mean 
— of Sir John in England will know very well 
who has a right to the property. I say nothing 
against miladi, but the truth is, that Sir John 
was angry with her for some time before he died. 
Now why does she want the will. Sir? If there 
is anv thing left to her in it she will get it safely 
by the law.” 

Paul emphasized his speech by a prolonged 
and grave shaking of his ]iead from side to 
side. 

“Paul,” said Mr. Frost, after a moment’s de- 
liberation, “miladi, as you call her, loas married 
to Sir John Gale.” Then he told him in a few 
words when and where the ceremony had been 
performed. , 

Paul remembered the expedition to the ship 
of war, and how ill and exhausted his master 
had been after it. He was much astonished by 
Mr. Frost’s statement, and reiterated his asser- 
tion that Sir John had been very angry with 
“miladi” before he died. How was it then 
that he had made her his wife at the eleventh 
hour ? 

It appeared clear to IMr. Frost that Paul had 
no suspicion of the existence of a former wife, 
or of any fraudulent intention on the part of his 
late master. 

“ At all events I suppose you believe my word, 
do you not?” said Mr. Frost. “The marriage 
on board the man-of-war I have reason to be 
sure did take place.” 

“ Oh, no doubt, Sir!” 

“And remember, Paul, although I perfectly 
appreciate your fidelity to the interests of your 
late master, that you have no conceivable right 
to retain possession of that key when Lady Gale 
bids you give it up.” 

“1 am sure. Sir, I desire nothing but to do 
my duty. Sir John was hard in some things, 
but he has done a great deal for me. He took 
me from being a courier to be his valet ; and he 
gave me a liberal salary. Sir, and I have been 
able from my sparings to do well for my family. 
I could not go against my duty to Sir John, 
Sir!” 

There was rhsolutely a quiver of emotion in 
Paul’s Av ell-regulated voice as he spoke. He 
Avas so fond of his boys in the Piedmontese hills, 
that Sir John, from constant connection Avith 
them in his mind, had attracted some soft senti- 
ments of Paul’s to his own share. And besides : 
under the little man’s grave imperturbability 
there Avas quite a feminine poAver of becoming 
attached to that Avhich needed him, in proportion 
as it Avas unattractive to the rest of the Avorld. 
He had often told himself that if he Avere to 
leaA'e Sir John, the latter Avould never get any 
one to seiwe him so well. For Sir John was a 
terribly hard gentleman, to say truth ! During 
Sir John’s lifetime Paul had occasionally come 
nigh to finding him intolerable. But noAV that 
he Avas dead, the man actually missed and 
mourned for his daily plague. 


VERONICA. 


103 


‘ ‘ Have you succeeded in making my servant 
understand that he will have to obey me, Mr. 
Frost?” asked Veronica, when the two men re- 
opened the door of the boudoir. 

“Paul quite understands,” said Mr. Frost, 
quietly. 

Barletti looked angry, but he gave his arm to 
Veronica without making any remark, and they 
all descended the stairs to the ground-floor, on 
which Sir John’s bedi'oom was situated. 

“Go on, Paul, and open the door,” said Mr. 
Frost. Then, as the servant obeyed him, he 
fell back a step or two, and said in a low voice to 
Barletti and Veronica: “If you will take my 
advice you will conciliate Paul. He is honest, 
I think. And it might come to pass that you 
would be glad to have him on your side.” 

“Conciliate him!” echoed Veronica, with a 
fi'own and a cruel compression of her red lips. 

‘ ‘ I would turn him into the street this moment. 
He should not be another night beneath this 
roof if I could have my way.” 

“Cara mia! Per pieta! Be reasonable!” 
whispered Barletti, on whom the lawyer’s warn- 
ing produced a strong effect. 

Paul unlocked the door of the dead man’s 
chamber, and, holding a lamp high above his 
liead, stood aside just within the threshold to 
let the others pass. All traces of disorder had 
been removed from the room. It was dim and 
still. The one oil lamp that burned there threw 
deejs shadows on the walls, and faintly illumined 
the objects that immediately surrounded its pale 
flame. The floor was covered with a thick car- 
pet into which the foot sank noiselessly. Gleams 
of gold shone out mysteriously here and there ; 
and a soft glow of ruby velvet from the furniture 
and hangings made itself seen in the dimness, 
where some salient fold caught the light. At 
one end of the room was a large swing glass 
that reflected the blinking lamp and the rich 
dark curtains touched here and there Avith light, 
and the hed with its vague, ghastly burden coa'- 
ered Avith a large Avhite sheet. 

Veronica, Avhen her eyes encountered this ob- 
ject in the glass, stopped, shuddering, and clung 
to Barletti’s arm. He, too, Avas not unmoA'ed by 
the scene, and he pressed her hand silently. 

“ No one Avatches here?” said ]\Ir. Frost, in a 
subdued voice, Avhich yet seemed to startle the 
solemn silence. 

“No one, Sir. But I haA'e the key of the 
chamber. And, as for that, not one of the do- 
mestics Avould A'enture to come here noAv if the 
room Avas all unguarded and unreckoned gold 
Avas scattered on the floor.” 

In silence they proceeded to open the desk — 
;Mr. Frost holding the light Avhile Paul unlocked 
it, opened an inner draAver, and took out a small, 
folded paper. 

“You recognize this as being the paper Avhich 
your master told you Avas his Avill, and made you 
sign ? AtM you see that, as far as you can tell, 
it has been quite undisturbed since you put it 
there, by his command, last night ?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

“And you, prince?” asked Mr. Frost, hand- 
ing the Avill to Barletti. 

The latter bent forward and examined it, 
Avithout touching it. Veronica barely glanced 
at it for a moment, and then her gaze returned 


to that Avhite, ghastly picture in the mirror, 
Avhich seemed to fascinate her. 

“ I believe it to be the same paper AA'hich he 
had in his hand last night,” said Barletti, speak- 
ing scarcely above his breath. 

Mr. Frost unfolded the Avill and read it si- 
lently. 

It bore date the seventeenth of February, and 
AA-’as expressed in short and clear sentences. It 
bequeathed the Avhole of Sir John Tallis Gale’s 
personal property absolutely to his “beloA^ed 
Avife” during her lifetime; and, in case of her 
death before the death of the testator, to her only 
surviving niece, Maud Hilda Desmond. There 
Avas no subsequent codicil, and no mention of 
any one else, saA’e a legacy of two thousand 
pounds to Mr. Adam Lane, Sir John’s agent, 
Avho Avas also appointed sole executor. 

“What does it say?” Avhispered Barletti. 

“What it says is of less consequence than the 
date it bears. If your cousin’s marriage Avas a 
good one, this Avill is mere Avaste paper.” 

Then, turning to Paul, Mr. Frost added : “ In 
accordance Avith Lady Gale’s desire, I shall by- 
and-by, in your presence, seal up this document, 
and retain it in my possession until Ave all arrive 
in England. You understand that I am responsi- 
ble for its safety until then.” 

Paul ansAvered, after a little grave delibera- 
tion : “Of course. Sir, I desire to do my duty to 
Sir John. I hope you Avill not take it per male 
— that you Avill not be offended — if I say that I 
shall Avrite to Mr. Lane, the agent of Sir John, 

I do not knoAV any of my master’s family ; but I 
shall tell ]Mr. Lane that 1 am ready to bear testi- 
mony if I am needed.” 

“That is quite right, Paul,” ansAvered ]Mr. 
Frost, a little stiffly. “ You may be sure that 
eA’ery thing Avill be done in a proper manner.” 

Then Paul proceeded to replace the emiity 
draAver, and to re-lock the desk ; and, as he did 
so, making no sound in the process, the others^ 
stood by in profound silence. It Avas a silence 
truly of death. Death Avas there in a tangible 
shai)e beneath the cold Avhite linen that Avas 
slightly raised, AA'ith an outline at once terribly 
unmistakable and terribly indistinct. 

Veronica had not dared to look directly at 'the 
bed, but she continued to stare at its image in 
the glass. All her old horror and dread of death 
seemed to be stealing over her. The factitious 
excitement AA-hich had given her courage to enter 
the room Avas fading fast. Her head throbbed, 
and her eyes Avere hot, and she felt dizzy. The 
impression of the aAvful scene during Sir John’s 
last moments seemed to come back to her Avith 
the sickening terror of a bad dream. 

In coming aAvay from the desk Paul accident- 
ally gave a slight touch to the great glass, and it 
instantly SAvung to a different angle — making one 
Avho looked into it giddy with a sudden vague 
sense of insecurity. 

As the mirror SAVung sloAvly doAvn, it seemed 
to Veronica’s eyes as though the AALite form on 
the bed AA'ere stirring and rising. 

“ He moves, he moves! he is not dead, he is 
moving ! ” she cried. And Avith a stifled shriek 
that died in her throat, she burst from Cesare, 
Avho AA’as scarcely less horror-stricken than her- 
self, and rushed into the corridor, Avhere, after 
, a feAv paces, she fell doAvn heavily in a sAvoon. 


104 


VERONICA. 


BOOK IV. 


CHAPTER L 

TEMPTATION. 

By the end of March Veronica arrived in En- 
gland. The news of Sir John’s death and of her 
marriage had, of course, preceded her thither. 
Telegrams and letters had been sent to IVIr, 
Lane, the agent, in the name of the self-styled 
Lady Tallis Gale. But besides these, there had 
come to Mr. Lane a letter from Paul. The 
agent had lost no time in communicating with 
the inheritor of the late baronet’s estate and 
title. This was an elderly bachelor who had 
made a small competence in trade, and had re- 
tired from business, and was living obscurely in 
a suburb of the large manufacturing town in 
which his life had been passed. Sir John had 
as much as possible ignored his plebeian con- 
nections ; and, without ever having set eyes on 
him, detested his presumptive successor. Mr. 
Matthew Tallis, or, as he must henceforward be 
styled. Sir Matthew Tallis Gale, had hastened 
to London, and had had a meeting with Mr. 
Lane; and Mr. Lane had seen Sir Matthew’s 
lawyer ; and they were all three prepared to meet 
and discuss matters with Veronica’s legal adviser. 

Mr. Erost had written to his partner, stating 
that he should be in England on the twenty-fifth 
of March. But the fact was, that he arrived 
three days sooner than that date. And one of 
his first proceedings was to go to Mrs. Lock- 
wood’s house in Gower Street. The yellow 
window- blinds that had been drawn closely 
down between the day of Lady Tallis’s death 
and that of her funeral Avere noAV again raised ; 
and the front rooms Avere pervious to as much 
daylight as ever visited that side of GoAver Street 
on a March afternoon. The little parlor into 
Avhich Mr. Erost Avas shoAvn looked neat as eA^er, 
but, he thought, very threadbare and poor. The 
air in it Avas close, though it Avas a chilly raAV day. 
And there AA^as a heavy silence in the house. 

Mrs. Lockwood entered the room Avith her 
noiseless, light footfall,, and touched JMr. Erost’s 
outstretched hand very coldly Avith her fingers. 

Eor a feAV moments neither spoke. 

“Well, Zillah, I haA'e got back, you see,” said 
Mr. Erost, Avith the slightest possible OA^eras- 
sumption of being at his ease, and in the supe- 
rior position. 

“Yes, you have got back, and I hope you 
bring some good neAvs for me.” 

“Your greeting Avill not turn my head by its 
cordiality.” 

“I hope you bring some good neAvs for me,” 
repeated Mrs. LockAvood. “ 1 have AAaaited lon- 
ger than the time you mentioned. You said, 
‘Wait until the Avinter.’ We are noAv at the 
end of March. I liaA^e had no word from you 
directly, all this time. And noAV that I see you 
it is natural I should recall our conversation last 
summer.” 

She spoke very dryly, and with more than her 
ordinary deliberation of manner. Mr. Erost 
seized on an unimportant twig of her discourse, 
so to speak, hoping thereby to diA'ert her atten- 
tion from the root of the matter. 


“You had no word from me!” he echoed, 
knitting his anxious forehead. “Why, I begged 
Georgina to come and give you my neAvs several 
times. I Avas busy, day and night. My Avife Avas 
the only person to Avhom I Avrote a line saA^e on 
business.” 

“ Your Avife came here once or twice — not spe- 
cially to see me — and she said some vague Avord 
about your kind regards, and that affairs Avere 
going Avell. But, of course, neither you nor I 
can pretend to each other that there Avas any sat- 
isfaction in that I I dare say it AA'as all A'ery well 
as regards other people. ” 

Mr. Erost commanded himself AAUth an effort. 
Even Avhile he repressed the rising temper, he 
told himself that it Avas cruelly hard that he 
should always have to be smooth and civil, 
Avhile every one else he knew could haA^e the 
satisfaction of lashing out when they Avere ir- 
ritated ; he Avavered up to the instant Avhen his 
lips began to form the words of his reply as to 
Avhether he should not give Avay and ease his 
goaded spirit at Avhatever cost ! 

“Well, Zillah,” he ansAA'ered, “I have good 
neAvs for you. ” 

“Thank God!” 

“At least, I suppose it Avill be considered to 
be good neAvs. At Hugh’s age I should have 
thought so.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed the widoAv, Avith a weary 
sigh. ‘ ‘ If there can be a question about its good- 
ness, your ‘good news’ is not good enough.” 

“ Hugh has the offer of a position Avhich may 
feb the stepping-stone to fortune. The directors 
of the Parthenope Embellishment Company Avill 
be happy to employ him, on my recommenda- 
tion, for a tAveh^emonth certain. And it is a 
kind of employment Avhich must bring him into 
notice. The salary offered is most liberal. The 
residence in such a charming place as Naples Avill 
be—” 

“It is of no use. Not the least, Sidney,” in- 
terposed Mrs. LoclvAvood. She had not called 
him by his Christian name for years. And the • 
return* of the once familiar appellation to her 
tongue Avas a proof of unAvonted excitement in 
her. 

“No use! Nonse!" 

“It is of no use at all, if Avhat you have to 
offer Hugh inA’olves exile to a foreign country. 

I Avas in hopes that you had something better to 
tell me than that. I Avas in hopes that — ” 

“Exile!” repeated Mr. Erost, impatiently in- 
terrupting her. “What nonsense! Exile to 
Naples ! How can a AA*oman of your sense 
talk in that Avay? One Avould think I Avas 
proposing to send him to Sierra Leone.” 

“If you Avere, it Avould not be more unlikely 
that Hugh should accept it. He has made up 
his mind to set up for himself. He has formed 
new ties, and assumed neAV responsibilities. Cap- 
tain SheardoAvn has offered to try to help Hugh 
to raise the necessaiy sum for the purchase of a 
business in Daneshire. If Captain SheardoAvn 
had the money himself, I believe he Avould ad- 
A'ance it directly. But he is not rich enough.” 

‘ ‘ Is Hugh married ?” asked Mr. Erost, abruptly. 


VERONICA. 


Ko 


“No: but he has engaged himself to Maud 
Desmond.” 

Mr. Frost felt, on the whole, relieved. If these 
friends would advance the money that Hugh 
needed, it might be a reprieve for him, Sidney 
Frost. 

And then — then it was possible that the mon- 
ey might never be needed at all! How good 
that w'ould be! What an excellent way out of 
the difficulties that beset him ; what an admirable 
postponement (not canceling, oh no ! Of course 
Hugh’s money should be paid when the fortune 
that was budding for every one connected with 
the Parthenope Embellishment Company should 
be full-blown) of the debt that weighed on him 
so irksomely ! What a desers-ed solace to the 
anxieties of the widowed mother whose heart 
w’as heavy witli care and self-reproach ! 

“Engaged himself, has he?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then the family difficulties I once hinted at 
— on the score of rank, you know — have been got 
over?” 

“ Lady Tallis, the poor woman who died here, 
was very fond of Hugh. I think that at first she 
did not quite like the idea of her niece’s marry- 
ing him, though. But she was as soft as wax, 
poor soul, and hadn’t a real ‘no’ in her. And 
the girl loves him very much.” 

A stranger might have detected no discontent 
in Zillah’s voice or words. But Mr. Frost knew 
her well, and he was sure that her son’s engage- 
ment did not altogether please her. 

“ It is not so bad a match for Hugh, after all,” 
said he. “ It is true that I did not like the idea 
when you first spoke of this thing as being likely, 
but — It might have been worse. Miss Des- 
mond has very little — a mere pittance — but small 
as her dowry is, it may be useful to Hugh.” 

“Maud wanted to give it all to him, to pur- 
chase this business with. But — ” 

“ But I suppose her trustees wouldn’t hear of 
that?” 

Hugh would not hear of that! He is re- 
solved that every shilling she has shall be settled 
tiglitly on herself.” 

“That is so like Hugh !” 

“Now you understand that I can not — cer- 
tainly will not — allow my son to commence his 
career hampered by debt, even though the debt 
be incurred to friends who would not press him 
unduly. I have thought of the matter in all 
\vays, for many weary days and wearier nights, 
and I have come to a fixed resolve on this point.” 

Mr. Frost sat leaning his head on his hand, 
and with his other hand twisting and untwisting 
his watch-chain. He did not look at Mrs. Lock- 
wood while he spoke to her. 

“ Zillah, I am going to risk making you hard- 
er against me than you are already,” he began. 

“I am harder against no one than against 
myself,” she answered ; and then set her mouth 
again inflexibly after she had spoken. 

“I am going to risk making you harder against 
me than you are already, by confessing that my 
chief object in coming here to-day — so immedi- 
ately after my arrival — was not Hugh’s business. ” 

“That does not make me any harder against 
you. lam not hard in order to please myself. 
Heaven knows.” 

“Have vou heard anv thing from Mr. Lane, 
lately ?” 


“Sir John Gale’s agent? Not since the fu- 
neral. He undertook to let that man know of 
his wife's death.” 

“You do not see the papers, nor hear much 
news, I suppose?” 

“ I ? No ; you know I do not.” 

‘*But I suppose you have heard that Sir John 
Tallis Gale is dead, and that Sir Matthew reigns 
in his stead ?” 

“ Dead ! Sir John Gale dead !” 

“You did not know it, then?” 

“Not a word, not a hint ! When did he die ?” 

“Twelve days ago, on the 10th of March. 
And you had not heard of it ? Miss Desmond 
had not been informed?” said Mr. Frost, looking 
half-*uspiciously at Zillah. 

“Maud has scarcely seen a soul since her 
aunt’s death. The vicar of Shipley came up to 
attend the funeral, by Lady Tallis’s express de- 
sire, and he and Maud have been shut up in the 
house all day, and only go out to take a little 
walk in the Regent’s Park in the evening. Hugh 
has been away at the Sheardowns. I expect him 
home to-morrow or the next day. And that 
man is dead ? Within a week of his poor wife ? 
How strange ! Poor Lady Tallis was unfortu- 
nate in her death as in her life. If she had sur- 
vived him but a day, she might have had it in 
her power to make some provision for ]\Iaud.” 

“How so ?” 

“ Well, I suppose that man, bad as he was, 
would have bequeathed his wife some part of his 
fortune. And if he had died intestate, she would 
have been a rich woman. That would have 
been the most likely. IMen like Sir John Gale 
often make no will at all.” 

‘ ‘ By an odd enough chance, I happen to know 
that this man did make a will, though.” 

“You?” 

“ Yes ; I have seen it.” 

Zillah knew Sidney Frost well enough to be 
quite sure that in saying this he was not in- 
dulging in mere purposeless gossip. Besides, he 
had said that he had not come to Gower Street 
on Hugh’s business. Was the business he had 
come upon in any way connected with Sir John 
Gale ? — with Lady Tallis ? — with Maud ? 

The latter thought sent a sudden hope through 
her heart — a hope which seemed almost a pang. 
She was so unused to hopes, that the barest 
glimpse of good fortune which her imagination 
might perceive was instantly followed by a move- 
ment of repression. If a thing appeared good, 
then it was unlikely ! That was Zillah’s expe- 
rience of life at fifty odd years. 

“You have seen Sir John Gale’s will?” she 
said, folding her small, fair hands quietly on the 
table by which she sat, and bending over a little 
toward Mr. Frost. 

“ He died in Naples. I was there at the time. 

I became, through some business transactions, 
acquainted with a gentleman who is a great friend, 
and — he says — a relative of the very beautiful 
young lady who was called in Naples Lady Gale.” 

“Ah, I see ! He has left all his money to her 
— to that vicar’s daughter ! What a fool I was 
not to think of that before ! I might have known 
that the person who least deserved it would get 
the prize I” 

Zillah would not have admitted to herself that 
she had hoped ; and not having hoped, she could 
not be said to be disapjDointed. Nevertheless it 


lOG 


VERONICA. 


was a secret feeling of disappointment that gave 
an extra flavor of bitterness to her words. 

“I have always thought you one of the most 
clear-headed women I ever knew, Zillah,” said 
Mr. Frost, “as well as one of the most discreet 
and trust- worthy ; and I am going to prove the 
sincerity of my opinion by telling you a strange 
story, on the condition that you keep it strictly 
to yourself for the present.” 

“A secret? No, no, no ! For Heaven’s sake 
give me no more secrets to carry about with me !” 

“This can not be a secret long,” answered 
Mr. Frost. Then he told her, with great clear- 
ness and accuracy, the story of his acquaintance 
with Barletti, of Veronica’s marriage on board 
the ship of war at Naples, and of the subsequent 
sudden death of Sir John Gale, and the finding 
of the will. 

]Mrs. Lockwood listened with ever deepening 
attention. When he came to the contents of the 
will, she removed the hand which had hitherto 
covered her mouth, and let it fall on the table. 

“Was the will witnessed — duly made out — 
was it a legal document ?” she asked. 

“ It was unimpeachably correct, and unusu- 
ally clear and brief.” 

“Then, Maud Desmond is a great heiress!” 
She sat very still, and spoke very quietly, but an 
unusual flush suffused her pale face, and the blue 
veins in the little worn hand that lay on the table 
swelled, revealing the force with which she was 
pressing it down. 

“I can not tell you whether she is, or not. 
But you can tell ?«e.” 

“ i ? I can tell you ?” 

“A true marriage invalidates a will; a false 
one does not. If there were still any breath in 
the body of Hilda, Lady Tallis Gale, at a quar- 
ter past ten o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, 
the fourth of March, the will is good, the second 
marriage is void, and your son’s wife is one of 
the wealthiest women in this kingdom.” 

Zillah gave a great sigh. Her hands dropped 
nervelessly into her lap, and she sank back in 
her chair, staring at Mr. Frost in silence. 


CHAPTER 11. 

MRS. Lockwood’s memory. 

Hugh returned from Lowater House on the 
day after Mr. Frost’s interview with his mother. 
Mr. Levincourt was still in London, but intended 
to return home by the end of the week. The 
vicar’s consent to his ward’s engagement had 
been given before Lady Tallis’s illness had begun 
to display cause for immediate alarm. The vic- 
ar had been once to London since the terrible 
journey when he had taken Maud to her aunt, 
having been summoned thither by Lady Tallis’s 
urgent request that she might have an opportu- 
nity of speaking to him about Maud. 

“I can not put all that 1 want to say upon 
paper,” she wrote. And indeed the poor lady’s 
epistolary style did not improve with years. 

When the vicar arrived, in compliance with 
Lady Tallis's entreaty, she urged him not to op- 
pose the wishes of the young people. 

“If you do not object. Lady Tallis,” said Mr. 
Levincourt, “ I suppose I oan not do so, either.” 

“It is not what Maud might have expected, 


j if things had been different with the poor 
lady observed. “ But what has the child to look 
to? Sir Thomas Delaney has eight children, 
six of ’em daughters I So it isn’t very likely heW 
do any thing for IMaudie. And you know, my 
dear friend, birth and riches don’t always make 
marriages liappy. Goodness knows I had the 
first. At least poor papa always would be tell- 
ing us that his was some of the best blood in Ire- 
land — not literalbj^ of course, ye understand ; 
for the fact is, he suffered a martyrdom from 
gout all his life. But what did my birth do for 
me? And as to money — well, to be sure, I’d 
like to have a little more of that to do as I like 
with I But still money won’t buy the best things. 
Now at one time I had more than I knew what 
to do with — in the early days, ye know — but I’d 
a thousand million times sooner have my dear 
girl to be kind to me and be poor, than be as rich 
as a Begum without a soul that cared a quarter 
of a straw about me ; and that brings me round 
to what I was saying to ye, that it would be a 
pity to lose a good husband for our dear Maud, 
just for a bit of family pride. I’ve reflected a 
good deal about it lately, my dear friend. And 
ye know good husbands don’t grow on every 
bush !” 

The vicar had no personal wish to oppose the 
engagement. He liked Hugh, and thought well 
of him. And, besides, there was another feel- 
ing in his mind which tended to make him favor- 
able to the engagement. He had never lost the 
conviction that Maud’s mother would have been 
a happier woman as the wife of a certain poor 
clergyman whom she loved, than it was possible 
for her to have been under any circumstances of 
loveless prosperity. And he had a vague no- 
tion that in forbearing to oppose Maud’s love- 
match, he was making a kind of reparation for 
the share he had had in destroying her mother’s 
young romance in the days when Clara Delaney 
had wandered with him under the old trees in 
her Irish home, and dreamed her girlish dream 
of unworldly happiness. 

Lady Tallis’s interview with the vicar had 
taken place early in December, and the engage- 
ment had been formally sanctioned before Christ- 
mas. 

“We needn’t proclaim it just yet,” said Lady 
Tallis, “until Hugh sees his way a little more 
clearly. And Maudie is quite young enough to 
wait.” 

“Dear Aunt Hilda, there is no one I know of 
to proclaim it to 1” ^laud had answered, simply 
and sadly. And Lady Tallis had acquiesced ; 
not without a sigh that the alliance of a daugh- 
ter of the united houses of Delaney and I^es- 
mond should be, perforce, thus mutely inglori- 
ous. 

Hugh had, however, compounded for pennis- 
sion to tell his happy news to his old friends, the 
Sheardowns. And Captain Sheardown had been 
moved to the offer of trying to assist Hugh in his 
project of raising the money for the purchase of 
the architect’s and suiweyor’s business in Dane- 
shire, by the announcement that Hugh was to 
marry Maud Desmond. 

“Did your ears burn, dearest — what pretty 
little white ears they are ! — while I w'as away ?” 
asked Hugh on the first evening of his return, 
holding Maud’s hands in his, and looking down 
at her golden hair. “They ought to have been 


VERONICA. 


107 




of the fieriest crimson, if the old saw were true ; 
for we talked of you, you, you — scarcely any 
thing else but you — all tiie time I was at Lowa- 
ter.” 

“ We talked! Dear Hugh, I am afraid you 
must have teased them with my name.” 

“No, darling; Mrs. Sheardown spoke of you 
constantly. What a delightful creature she is !” 
added Hugh, with a naive earnestness that 
brought a smile to Maud’s lips, and a blush to 
her pale cheek. 

Maud is not much changed in outward aspect 
since she was last presented to the reader. She 
is perhaps a trifle paler and thinner, but that has 
come within the last month. She had grieved 
for her aunt, but without acute pain of mind. 
She had the peace-bestowing assurance that her 
})resence had been a solace and a joy to poor 
Aunt Hilda ; and had made the forsaken woman 
some amends for years of hard usage and neg- 
lect. And there was in Maud’s spirit none of 
that unappeasable sorrow which comes from re- 
morseful memories of duties left undone, or done 
grudgingly without heart-felt kindness. 

Lady Tallis’s death had been almost painless. 
She had not known that her end was near until 
within three days of her decease, and then she 
spoke of it calmly and cheerfully. And she had 
uttered many a solemn injunction to Hugh to be 
true and tender to the orphan girl who loved 
him. “My only regret in the world is that I 
can do nothing for the sweet child,” she had said. 
“If she had been my daughter instead of my 
niece, she would have inherited a pretty penny < 
under my marriage-settlement. But, as it is, it 
all goes back to him. But maybe it is all for 
the best.” 

After a pause, she had added : “I can’t speak 
of him to Maudie, my dear Hugh. But if — if 
ever any chance — God only knows how strangely 
things come about sometimes — if ever chance 
should give ye the opportunity of letting him 
know that I — that I die in peace with him, I’d 
be glad he should be told so. It might be good 
for him to know it, some day. And — and — of 
course I can’t altogether make excuses for him, 
but I know I was not very wise in times gone 
by, and maybe I tried him. And I did love him 
once, Hugh. And those whom Go*d has joined 
together, I don’t believe can ever be quite put 
asunder. Distance won’t do it. And time 
won’t do it. And — I’d like him to know that I 
jirayed for him, Hugh, and asked his pardon if 
I vexed him or did wrong by him in past years.” 

“Dearest Lady Tallis, I am sure you have no- 
thing to reproach yourself witli!” 

“Ah, Hugh, Hugh, looking death in the face 
gives the foolishest of us wisdom enough to see 
our own shortcomings. And I’d like him to for- 
give me my trespasses as I forgive his — and as I 
hope to be forgiven.” 

Again she paused ; this time for so long that 
Hugh thought she had fallen asleep. But as he 
began softly to move away she stopped him and 
motioned him to bend down his head over the 
couch where she was lying. And then she said, 
“And, Hugh, when I’m gone, he may do justice 
to that — that young woman. I Jiave felt very 
bitter toward her, that’s the truth. And I don’t 
mean to tell you that I feel quite as a good Chris- 
tian ought to feel at this minute. But I Im'e 
forgiven hei*, my dear, though it was hard. I 


dare say she is to be pitied, poor creature ! And 
I won’t distress our darling just now with speak- 
ing of it, but afterward^ Hugh, when she’s calm, 
and can think of me without pain, ye may tell 
her what I said. She loved the other girl, and 
’twill comfort her.” 

And so the poor, gentle, kindly spirit had left 
the world, in charity with all men. 

Hugh had much to say to Maud on that first 
day of his return. They walked out together at 
dusk, and he spoke of his plans. Matters had 
not yet been definitively arranged, but Captain 
Sheardown had great hopes that IMr. Snowe 
would advance the money required. Herbert 
Snowe was now a partner in his father’s bank, 
and was good-naturedly desirous of helping 
Hugh. The old gentleman was slow and cau- 
tious and difficult to satisfy. But Hugh had 
good hopes that he would consent to advance the 
money after a decent delay, 

“And then, my own darling, we will be mar- 
ried directly, will we not ? There is nothing to 
wait for, is there ?” 

“ N — no, dear Hugh. If you will take me in 
my black gown, I will come to you when you are 
ready. Dear Aunt Hilda would not have wished 
us to delay our marriage.” 

“Far from that! You know what she said, 
the good kind soul. And as to the gown, it must 
be a white one, for that day at all events.” 

When they got home again, Hugh had some 
papers and plans to look over for his employers, 
Digby and West. He had not left their office, 
•but was continuing at a weekly salary, on the 
understanding that he should be allowed to quit 
them at a fortnight’s notice. They all sat in 
Mrs. Lockwood’s little parlor. The sitting-room 
up stairs had not been used since Lady Tallis’s 
death. Maud had a book, but it lay for the 
most part idly in her lap, while her eyes dreami- 
ly wandered toward Hugh as he bent over his 
papers, and every now and then stuck a short 
blunt pencil between his teeth to hold it, and knit 
his brows portentously over the consideration of 
some difficult point. The vicar, too, had a book, 
which he read, or seemed to read. And JMrs. 
Lockwood’s nimble fingers were busy with a 
basketful of soft gray woolen stockings — Hugh’s 
stockings — which she was mending on an infal- 
lible principle that almost appeared to make a 
darned stocking superior to an undarned one ; so 
daintily dextrous was the crossing of the threads ! 

Usually the widow was not by any means lo- 
quacious. To-night, however, her tongue moved, 
if not as rapidly, almost as unrestingly, as her 
fingers. Site harped on the topic of Lady Tal- 
lis’s death, returning to it again and again, until 
the vicar at length shut his book with a look of 
resignation. 

“ You remember what day it Avas she died, 
Maud?” said Mrs. Lockwood. 

“ Remember it!” 

“ I mean you remember the date and all. Of 
course you do, Tuesday, the fourth of JMarch, 
it was ; yes, that was the date. ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And — and when I came up stairs again after 
preparing the beef tea that she had asked for, she 
had fallen asleep.” 

“Yes,” said Maud, again. She did not un- 
derstand why these details should be recapitu- 
lated, but she answered sweetly and patiently. 


108 


VERONICA. 


“We have never spoken of the particulars to Mr. 
Levincourt, have we?” pursued Mrs. Lockwood. 
The vicar was not specially desirous of hearing 
more particulars than he knew already respecting 
Lady Tallis’s death ; and Zillah perceived this 
perfectly. But with an utter absence of her usual 
fine tact, she continued to harp on the subject. 

“ She seemed a little better, and very cheerful 
that morning, did she not, Maud ?” 

“Yes ; she was free from suffering at the last, 
thank God !” 

“Oh, quite; quite. When I first came into 
her room, she said, ‘ I feel much stronger than I 
did yesterday.’ Who would have thought that 
by noon that day she would be dead ! ” 

The vicar, feeling himself called on to say 
something, gave a little sigh, and murmured, 
“Ah, it is often the case in that disorder that 
the patient feels unaccountably better just before 
the end comes.” 

“ I w'as with her a long time after Maud went 
away that morning, Mr. Levincourt. Maud had 
been sitting up all night, and Avas Avorn out. I 
sent her to bed. Was I not right ?” 

“Very right, and considerate.” 

‘ ‘ And so Maud Avas not Avith her aunt at the 
last. But Lady Tallis passed aAvay in a kind of 
gentle slumber. She slept a long time — until 
past ten, I should say. Indeed I am pretty sure. 
And Jane says so too. I Avas talking to Jane 
about it this morning. I could SAA^ear Lady Tal- 
lis Avas aliA e until past ten o’clock ! And Jane is 
sure of it too.” 

“You had better not SAA^ear it, either of you,” 
said Hugh, looking up from his papers, “for you 
Avould be mistaken.” 

‘ ‘ Mistaken ! Why, Hugh, the — the more I 
think of it, the surer I feel that — ” 

“ Darling mother, we need not pursue the dis- 
cussion. It is not likely that you Avill have to 
make oath about it.” 

“ Not at all likely. Most unlikely, as far as — 
as far as Ave knoAV. But still, Hugh, as far as 
the matter of fact is concerned, I feel convinced 
tliat she must have been still alive after ten 
o’clock. She must ! I am sure of it. ” 

Mrs. LockAvood’s tone Avas so petulant and sharp, 
and so unlike her usual tone of resolute compos- 
ure^thatHugh looked at her Avith some uneasiness. 

“She has been overworn and harassed, the 
poor little mother, ” he thought. Then he glanced 
at Maud, Avhose eyes Avere brimming Avith tears : 
and pushing his papers aside, to be finished Avhen 
the others should haA'e gone to bed, he set him- 
self to speak cheerfully of his prospects and of 
his plans ; hoAv they Avould let the house in GoAA'er 
Street ; and hoAv he had seen a tiny cottage near- 
the spot he had set his heart on living at, in Dang- 
shire, that Avould just suit his mother ; and hoAv 
he had already projected sundry inexpensive al- 
terations that would make the tiny cottage a de- 
lightful residence. And so no more Avas said 
that night about Lady Tallis. 


CHAPTER III. 

A CLOSE RUN. 

On the following day Hugh LockAvood had 
tAvo surprises. The first Avas of a very disagree- 
able nature. The second, though it at first ap- 


peared to him to be a very simple matter, Avas 
of great importance in its results. 

When he reached the office of Digby and West, 
at Westminster, he found a letter there addressed 
to himself. The sight of the Danecester post- 
mark made his pulse beat a thought quicker as 
he opened it. 

It Avas from Herbert SnoAve, and to the fol- 
loAAung effect : 

Mr. SnoAve, senior, regretted that he should 
not be able at present to adAmnce the sum of 
m'oney Mr. LockAvood had desired to borroAv of 
the bank. The present time Avas a period of 
anxiety and uncertainty in the money market. 
Mr. SnoAve did not feel himself justified in en- 
tering into any transaction of the kind contem- 
plated, without better security than could be of- 
fered by Mr. LockAvood’s friends. Mr. SnoAA'e 
had every confidence in Mr. LockAA’ood’s being 
able to find the money elseAvhere. Meanwhile 
he begged to assure him of his kindest esteem. 

Hugh crushed the letter in his hand, and Avent 
straight to his desk, Avhere he began to Avrite at 
a fierce rate. After a few minutes he put doAAm 
his pen, and took up the letter again and read it 
through Avith compressed lips ; the under pro- 
jecting over the upper, in a Avay that gave him a 
strong resemblance to his mother. 

There Avere a few words at the end of the 
letter expressive of Herbert SnoAA'e’s personal 
regret that the matter had not been arranged. 

“I think, LockAvood, that, if you can AA’ait a 
Avhile, Ave may yet be able to do the loan for 
•.you,” Avrote young SnoAve. “My father is a 
cautious man, and I believe the fact to be as he 
asserts, that the present moment is not one in 
Avhich prudent men can afford to run any money 
risks. ” 

“Risks!” exclaimed Hugh, contemptuously. 

‘ ‘ Risks, to a house like Snowe’s ! I believe the 
old man could put his hand in his pocket and 
pull out the poor little sum I AA'ant, and scarcely 
miss it !” 

Then he thought that it Avas of no use to scold 
or sulk, and resolved to bear his disappaintment 
manfully. But it was a disappointment, and he 
Avorked on with an increasing sense of depression. 

It often happens that the first shock of misfor- 
tune is far fr6m being the hardest part of it. We 
take up our burden Avith untired muscles, and 
find it lighter than our fears had anticipated. 
But Avith every mile of our journey the Aveight 
groAvs more and more oppressiA^e. 

Before the time came for him to leave his of- 
fice, a note Avas brought to him by a messenger. 
And this AA^as the second surprise. The note Avas 
as folloAvs : 

“Bedfoed Squaee, Wednesday. 

“My dear Hugh, — I haA'e got back from 
foreign parts, Avhere I have been very busy all 
the Avinter. I should be glad to see you, either 
this afternoon or to-morroAV, at my office here, 
as I liaA^e something advantageous to communi- 
cate to you. I shall be ready for you at any 
time betAveen five and six. Yours ahvays, 

“S. Frost.” 

“Something adA^antageous ! It will be A'ery 
AA'elcome just nnAA”-,” thought Hugh. But he did 
not alloAV himself to be too sanguine, knoAving 
that Mr. Frost’s ideas of his adA’antage Avere a 
little at variance Avith his own. He sent a line 


VERONICA. 


J 109 


back by the messenger, to say that he would be 
with ]\Ir. Frost a few minutes after five. And 
as soon as he left his office he made for Bedford 
Square. 

Mr. Frost received him in his private room 
with all his accustomed kindness of manner, and 
bade him be seated in the purple leather chair 
opposite his own. 

“Well, Hugh, and how goes on business? 
You are still with Digby and West, I suppose?” 

“Yes, for the present.” 

“ When I went away, you had some idea of 
leaving them and setting up for yourself.” 

“ I have the idea still. Sir. But it is a mighty 
difficult idea to carry out. ” 

‘ ‘ Naturally ! And I hope you will do nothing 
rashly. You know the homely proverb about 
not throwing away the dirty water before you 
have got the clean.” 

“ I shouldn’t call Digby and West dirty water. 
They have behaved very handsomely to me. But 
as to your proverb, if a man were always con- 
tent to stay as he is, it would be a poor business 
for the world in general.” 

“I have not been unmindful of you while I 
have been away, Hugh. I have had your inter- 
ests in view; and I come back empowered to 
make you an offer.” 

“Thank you, with all my heart, for kindly 
thinking of me.” 

“Oh, that is nothing. I consider myself 
bound ; I am your father’s old friend, you know. 
There is nothing to than’K me for. But I hope 
you will consider my news good news.” 

“Whatever I think, I shall not be the less 
obliged to you for your good-will.” 

jMr. Frost perceived that Hugh was not going 
to bind himself blindfold to accept whatever 
should be offered him : he saw that there was a 
quiet preparation on the young man’s part for 
making resistance, if resistance should be neces- 
sary. 

“Well, I am commissioned by the Directors 
of the Parthenope Embellishment Company to 
offer you an engagement as assistant architect and 
surveyor to the works they are employed on at 
Naples. And if you will cast your eyes over this 
letter of the secretary to me, and over these pa- 
l)ers, I think you will allow that the offer is not 
a bad one.” 

Mr. Frost pushed the letter, and papers across 
the table as he spoke. 

Hugh read them attentively ; and then, rais- 
ing his eyes to Mr. Frost’s face, said : “The of- 
fer is a most liberal — I may say an extraordinari- 
ly liberal — one, indeed. ” 

“The fact is that nearly all the power would 
be in your hands. They have a big name on 
their prospectus to catch the public, of course. 
But the man with the big name would be in 
London ; and I dare say would practically trou- 
ble himself very little about the works.” 

“But the assistant architect would have to re- 
side at Naples ?” 

“It is a charming place. One does not get 
many opportunities of being paid to go and live 
in such a lovely spot. Upon my word, I should 
think a year or so’s residence at Naples the most 
tempting part of the business!” 

“Not to me, Mr. Frost,” 

“Well, to be sure, the other advantages are 
substantially greater.” 


“They are very great, no doubt. But the 
fact is, I can not avail myself of them.” 

“My dear Hugh! You don’t mean to say 
that you will be so — But I won’t be angry 
with you ; and I won’t take you at your word. 
What possible reason can there be against the 
scheme ?” 

“I hate to seem so ungracious: ungrateful, I 
I assure you, I am not. The truth is, there are 
several reasons against it, which all seem good 
and sufficient to me.” 

“Might one ask what they are?” 

“ It is really not so easy to explain them.” 

“ Excuse me, Hugh ; but, in general, when a 
man can’t explain his reasons, I take it they are 
not clear to his own mind ; or else that he is 
ashamed of them.” 

“I am certainly not ashamed of mine,” an- 
swered Hugh, good-humoredly. 

“And you really mean to throw up this pros- 
pect without more reflection ?” 

“ I do not believe that further reflection would 
alter my intentions. And besides, you know, it 
would not be fair that I should hesitate too long. 
Since it is so desirable a thing, there will doubt- 
less be plenty of candidates for it, ” 

“I dare say the position will not go a-beg- 
ging,” answered Mr. Frost, stiffly. 

‘ ‘ Look here, M r. Frost. Y ou know that I am 
not ungrateful for your kind interest in me. But 
I am not a child, and I must be allowed to judge 
for myself in this matter. ” 

“Oh, certainly!” 

“ Now you are angry with me ; and yet, on my 
honor, I would do almost any thing rather than 
that you should be. You remember that we 
talked of my prospects last year. And I told 
you then that I was resolved to endeavor to make 
a little career and home for myself. I am still 
in the same mind. I believe I am rather a con- 
stant fellow by nature — well, obstinate, if you 
like ! I see the word in your face. If I am to 
be in any one’s employ, I will remain with Digby 
and West. They have treated me well. And 
they are safe as the Bank. This Parthenope 
Company offers very magnificently; but it may 
be all a flash in the pan, you know. These com- 
panies sometimes collapse unexpectedly. These 
are reasons that I can explain, you see. There 
are others that I am not at liberty to speak of, 
and that I must ask you to take my word for.” 

“ Hugh, if I guess one of these reasons aright, 
will you tell me ?” 

“ Why, I don’t know what to say about that !” 

“That means that you won’t ! But I can tell 
you that, last year before I left England, I had 
a conversation with your mother ; who foresaw, 
even then, that you were very likely to lose your 
heart to a fair young lady.” 

“Did she, Sir ?” said Hugh. He was inward- 
ly a good deal surprised that his mother should 
have spoken confidentially to Mr. Frost on a 
subject which she had never broached to him- 
self at that time. 

“Yes; and I will say candidly that I then 
thought that prospect a bad one.” 

“That I should lose my heart to a fair young 
lady? After all, it was rather natural !” 

“I thought at the time that the loss of your 
heart to the special young lady I had in view 
would lead to trouble. But it may be that I was 
wrong. To go back for a moment to the busi- 


110 


VERONICA. 


ness I sent foi* you upon ; am I to understand 
that vour definite answer to the proposition is 
‘no’r 

“‘No, thank you!' at the very least,” said 
Hugh, smiling. Then he added, seriously : “ If ' 
you would prefer that I should take a day or two ' 
to consider of the matter — ” i 

“ I should certainly think it advisable.” | 

‘ ‘ Then I will do it. I don’t wish to seem 
pig-headed. I will talk over the matter at home, ! 
and let you know my final decision in two days. | 
But I must add that you must not expect me to ' 
give a different answer from the one I have given 
already.” 

“In two days? Good. The Parthenope Em- 
bellishment can wait that time. Now tell me 
how is all at home — your mother?” ' 

“ My mother is not very well, I fear. She I 
does not complain, but I believe she has been ' 
harassed and tried too much. She frets more ! 
than she ought to fret, about troubles. But yet 
she is wonderfully placid in her manner at most 
times. Last night, however, she was ruffled and 
unlike herself. ” 

“Indeed?” 

“Yes. You know we have had trouble in the 
house, in the death of poor Lady Tallis ?” 

“ I heard of her death. It was on the fourth 
of March, was it not?” 

“Let me see. I think so. Y^es.” 

“ Had she been ill long?” 

“ 111, yes ; but not long in apparent danger.” 

“ And she died on the evening of the fourth 
of March.” 

“ Morning ! On the morning of the fourth.” 

“Oh, morning was it? Ay, ay. I suppose 
her niece was with her to the last ?” 

“By an odd chance, I believe I was the last 
person Avho saw Lady Tallis alive.” 

‘ ‘ Really ! Then I suppose her death took place 
very early — before you went to Westminster ?” 

“ I did not go to Westminster to my office 
tliat day. I could not leave my mother and 
jMaud — Miss Desmond — alone. I had no very 
special work on hand, and had taken a few days’ 
leave of absence.” 

“I see, I see. Poor Lady Tallis ! On Tues- 
day morning the fourth of IMarch. At about 
ten or eleven o’clock, I suppose. Y"ou said it 
was in the forenoon, I think ?” 

Hugh could not but be struck by the coinci- 
dence of Mr. Prost’s harping on the particulars 
of Lady Tallis’s death, in the same way in which 
his mother had haqied on them last night. 

“Why, Mr. Frost,” he said, abruptly, “is it 
a matter of anv importance at what hour Ladv 
Tallis died ?” 

]Mr. Frost was in nowise disconcerted by the 
question, but answered with a complex frown 
on his knotted forehead, and a shrewd smile on 
his closed lips. “ It may prove to be so, indeed, 
Hugh. It is astonishing on what small hinges 
an important matter may sometimes turn.” 

Hugh could not resist an uneasy feeling, like 
the first cold touch of suspicion, as he recalled 
his mother’s manner of the previous evening. 
What was there — what could there be — to sus- 
pect? He did not know. But the cold touch 
was there, at his heart. 

“Well,” he answered, “if it he of import- 
ance, I believe I can set the matter at rest. She 
died — ” 


“Stop, Hugh! Wait a minute. Things of 
this kind are easily said, but not easily unsaid.” 

“ Unsaid! I do not understand you.” 

“I mean that in a case where accuracy is of 
vital importance, a person not previously warned 
of this importance may speak thoughtlessly an 
inaccurate word to which he will stand commit- 
ted, and which may produce a great deal of 
mischief.” 

“But I—” 

“ So,” proceeded Mr. Frost, speaking through 
Hugh’s words, “so I will, if you will allow me, 
explain to you how very important, to othei's, 
it is that vou should weigh your words care- 
fully.” 

Point by point, Mr. Frost went over the stoiy 
he had told to Mrs. Lockwood. Hugh fixed his 
eyes on him while he spoke, with a can*did, un- 
disguised expression of wonder. Mr. Frost did 
not look at him often, though from time to time 
he met his eye openly and steadily. But he took 
a sheet of ruled paper that lay on the table before 
him, and, as he spoke, occupied his fingers in 
folding it over and over, with accurate care to 
make the creases correspond with the blue ruled 
lines. 

When Mr. Frost had made an end of his story, 
he leaned back in his chair, and began twisting 
his folded paper into a spiral form. 

“AW,” said he, “are you quite sure you 
know at what hour Lady Tallis died ?” 

Hugh nodded his head gravely and slowly be- 
fore he answered. “She died in time to make 
that marriage a good maniage, if her death were 
all that was necessary to do so.” 

The twisted paper in Mr. Frost’s hands was 
suddenly rent in half throughout its folded thick- 
nesses. 

“Indeed? Y'ou speak very confidently, but 
your answer is not categorical. And the evi- 
dence may be conflicting. Y'ou!* mother thought 
differently on this point.” 

“My mother! If my mother thought differ- 
ently, she was mistaken. And by leading ques- 
tions it may be possible to elicit an answer of 
whose bearing the answerer is not fully aware. ” 

“Leading questions! Y'ou speak as though 
I had some advantage to gain by dis])roving this 
marriage ! What in Heaven’s name do you sup- 
pose it matters to me? I don’t quite compre- 
hend you, Hugh.”. 

“And to say truth, Ylr. Frost, I do not at all 
comprehend you.” 

“ I have no taste for mystery, I assure you. 
Nor for Quixotism. It is, perhaps, not difficult 
to throw away other people’s fortunes with a 
high-and-mighty flourish. I am a plain, c.vnical 
kind of man ; and I should think twice before I 
did so.” 

No twinge of conscience prevented Mr. Frost’s 
handsome face from being scornful, or weakened 
the contemptuous force of his shrug, as he said 
those words. 

Hugh was pained and uneasy. His mother, 
then, had seen Mr. Frost ! And she had been 
guilty of something like deception in suppress- 
ing the fact ! This, to Hugh, was an almost in- 
tolerable thought. Y'et he would not ask any 
questions, on this point, of Mr. Frost. After a 
pause he said : “I honestly do not know what 
you mean, or what you would have me do. I 
can but speak the truth !” 


VERONICA. 


Ill 


“Oh, of course,” answered Mr. Frost, diwly. 
“The truth by all means; so soon as you are 
quite sure what is the truth. The other party 
intend to litigate.” 

“To litigate?” 

“ They intend to litigate, I believe (understand 
I am not acting for the soi-disant Lady Gale. 
Lovegrove is INIiss Desmond’s trustee and quasi- 
guardian, and there would be a certain indelica- 
cy in one of the firm appearing on the other 
side) ; they intend to litigate, unless they find 
beforehand by testimony as to the period of Lady 
T.’s death that they haven’t a leg to stand on !” 

Hugh passed his hand over his forehead. Mr. 
Frost watched him keenly. 

“There are circumstances in this case,” said 
^Ir. Frost, “which would render the publicity 
of litigation peculiarly painful. INIiss Desmond’s 
position would be most distressing.” 

Hugh continued to rub his forehead with the 
air of one trying to resolve a painful problem. 

INIr. Frost got up and stood in his favorite 
posture with his back to the fire-place. He 
averted his gaze from Hugh, and played with 
his watch-chain. “My own impression is,” he 
said, “that Lady T. died at a more convenient 
time for her niece’s fortunes than you seem to 
think. Mrs. Lockwood, when I saw her yes- 
terday — (Perhaps she did not mention having 
seen me ? Ah ! Well, it was quite a confidential 
interview); — Mrs. Lockwood was of opinion that 
if the thing rested on her testimony, and that 
of the servant, it would come right for Miss 
Desmond.” 

Hugh got up from his chair and stood opposite 
to Mr. Frost, looking at him with a very stern 
face. And his voice was louder than usual as he 
answered : “ But the thing will rest on my testi- 
mony. And I have already told you to what ef- 
fect my testimony will be.” And he walked out 
of the office without another word. 

]Mr. Frost stood without moving for some time 
after Hugh was gone. Then he clasped his 
hands over his head wearily. “It may be,” 
thought he, “ that the marriage on shipboard 
was begun earlier than I fancied. People are so 
vague about time. We must make proper in- 
quiries. But, by Jove, it Avill be a wonderfully 
close runJ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

GOSSIP. 

“I don’t believe a Avord of it!” said Mrs. 
LoAegrove. 

“My dear!” remonstrated her husband. 

“I do not,” repeated Mrs. LoA^egrove, dis- 
tinctly. Then she added, “ Noav I put it to you, 
Augustus, does this thing stand to reason ?” 

“It may not stand to reason, and yet it may 
be true, mamma. When a Avoman is in the 
case, things very often do not stand to reason ; 
but they happen all the same, ” observed Augus- 
tus LoA’egrove, junior. 

There had been for some time past a tone of 
bitterness and misanthropy observable in this 
voung gentleman’s language and manners. He 
also frequented matins Avith inflexible punctual- 
ity, and dined off boiled greens and bread on 
Wednesdays and Fridays. This severe self-dis- 
cipline and mortification Avas attributed by his 


mother and sisters to a disappointed attachment 
to Miss Desmond. But no Avord Avas ever spok- 
en on the subject in the family Avhen Augustus 
Avas present. 

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Lovegrove, gravely. 
“As regards men or Avomen either, many things 
happen AA’hich one can’t exactly say stand to rea- 
son. ” ♦ 

“I have been told,” said Mrs. LovegroA-e, mak- 
ing her upper lip A’ery long, “that my intellect 
is too logical for a Avoman’s. If it be so, I can 
not help it. But, I repeat, I can not believe that 
that man” — here Mrs. Lovegrove shuddered — 
“committed such a horrible act of injustice at 
the very brink of the grave. ” 

“I don’t see any thing surprising in it. The 
man had been committing horrible acts of in- 
justice all his life; and there AA^as no reason to 
expect him to become a changed man at the last 
moment. Besides, it is not a question of Avhat 
any body thinks, or of Avhat seems likely or un- 
likely. The marriage either can be proved or it 
can not,” said INIr. Lovegrove, folding back his 
Times ncAvspaper so as to read it more conven- 
iently, and giving it a sharp tap Avith the back 
of his hand. 

“ I Avould not for the Avorld that the girls heard 
this repulsive story mentioned,” said Mrs. Love- 
grove. 

“I don’t see hoAv you’re to keep it from them,” 
replied her husband. “They happen to be 
spending the day out to-day ; but that is only 
once in a Avay. They Avill be at home to-mor- 
roAv, and you can’t prevent people chatter- 
ing.” 

And, indeed, it Avas not long before the Misses 
LoA'egrove Avere informed of the decease of Lady 
Tallis Gale’s husband ; and had heard of the 
person Avho claimed to be his AvidoAv; and of 
the large fortune depending on the issue; and 
of a great many details respecting the innermost 
thoughts and feelings of the parties concerned. 

The Lovegroves’ serA’ants kneAv the story. So 
did the Frosts’. So did the little maid-of-all- 
Avork at Mrs. LockAvood’s ; and she retailed the 
relishing gossip to the green-grocer’s Avife, and 
to the baker, and to the milkman ; and like a 
rolling snoAV-ball, the tale greAv Jn the telling. 

Mrs. LoA^egrove, after her declaration of un- 
belief, sat and pondered on the extraordinary 
caprice of fortune Avhich Avas said to have oc- 
curred. 

She did not believe it. No ; she did not be- 
lieve it ! But she should like to hear a fsAv more 
particulars. It Avas really a long time since she 
had called on Mrs. Frost. Heaven forbid that 
she, Sarah Lovegrove, should be the one to bring 
dissension betAveen partners ! Boor Mrs. Frost’s 
Aveak vanity AA'as objectionable. But not for 
that AA’ould she abstain from paying her due cml- 
ity, so long as such civility Avere not incompati- 
ble Avith principle. Sarah Lovegrove had ever 
been considered to possess a masculine intelli- 
gence, superior to the petty foibles of her sex. 

The u])shot of Mrs. Lovegrove’s meditations 
Avas, that she sent for the fly Avhich Avas hired 
out from an adjacent liv’ery-stable, and Avas 
driven in state to Mr. Frost’s residence. 

It Avas a good opportunity. Her daughters 
Avere absent ; and she Avould run no risk of con- 
taminating their ears AA-ith the details of a kind 
of story Avith Avhich, alas! elder persons Avere 


112 


VERONICA. 


ohUged to be acquainted in their journey through 
the world! 

]\Irs. Lovegrove always arrayed herself with 
especial care for a visit to Mrs. Frost. Her 
toilet on this occasion was a matter of more hes- 
itation and mental debate than she would will- 
ingly have acknowledged even to herself. At 
one momenf^she would resolve to adhere to the 
strict principles that usually regulated her attire, 
and that resulted in the general sad-colored ef- 
fect of it ; at another, she would be tempted to 
relieve the leaden dullness by a bright bow of 
ribbon or a flower. She was divided between a 
desire to vindicate the strength of her intellect 
by showing herself to be above the frivolities of 
fashion, and a secret fear of Mrs. Frost’s satir- 
ical glances, and, possibly, speeches. 

Mrs. Lovegrove never confessed to herself that 
she was afraid of Mrs. Frost, and certainly the 
latter had no suspicion of the fact, but spoke to 
iSIr. Frost of his partner’s wife as “ that self-suf- 
ficient, wooden-headed woman.” Nevertheless, 
Mrs. Lovegrove was by no means self-sufficient 
enough to be indifferent to the opinion of Mrs. 
Frost. And she concealed more feminine gen- 
tleness and timidity under her hard exterior than 
had ever entered into the composition of the 
beautiful Georgina ; which is not, howeA'er, say- 
ing much. 

It was about half past four o’clock in the after- 
noon when Mrs. Lovegrove’s fly drew up at the 
door of Mr. Frost’s house. Mrs. Lovegrove was 
ushered into a small, shady drawing-room, where 
she found the hostess talking with a lady whose 
appearance struck Mrs. Lovegrove with amaze- 
ment, mingled with disapproval. The visitor 
Avore a brilliant costume made in the most girlish 
mode; and on the top of a heap of false hair, 
whose excessive quantity displayed a sovereign 
contempt for probability, was perched a small 
white hat adorned Avith peacock’s feathers. As 
the face beneath the hat must have faced at least 
sixty summers, the contrast betAveen it and its 
head-gear aa'us startling. ’ 

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Frost, in a tone that 
said plainly. Who Avould have thought of seeing 
you ! “ liow do you do, Mrs. LovegroA'e ?” 

INIrs. Lovegrove suddenly became conscious, 
as she sat doAvn, of the disagreeable fact that her 
gloves Avere of a staring yelloAV color, Avhich 
stood out objectionably against the leaden hue 
of her gOAA U. She had hesitated long before put- 
ting on these gloves, but had at last decided on 
Avearing them, as being the only spot of bright- 
ness about her attire. And noAv, Avhen she saAV 
Mrs. Frost’s fine eyes lazily inspecting them, she 
became painfully aAvare that they were obtrusive, 
that they attracted the eye to every movement 
of her hands, and that she could not so much 
as raise her handkerchief to her face Avithout 
demonstratively exhibiting two yellow glaring 
patches. 

But Mrs. LoA'egrove was not one of those 
Avhose emotions are quickly translated into the 
expression of their faces ; she seated herself op- 
posite to the mistress of the house Avith a stern 
countenance. 

“You haA’e got Mr. Frost back again,” she 
said, after the first greetings AA'ere oA^er. “ IIoav 
is he ?” 

“Well, really,” rejoined Mrs. Frost, “you 
ought to knoAV better than I do ! You people at 


Bedford Square haA’e more of his company than 
I have.” . 

“But he is at home generally in the evenings, 
my dear, is he not ?” asked she of the peacock’s 
feathers. 

“ Sometimes. But in the eA’ening I am often 
out.” 

“Out?” 

“Yes. I am neA*er sure Avhether he will be at 
home or not, and so I do not put off my engage- 
ments.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t stir if I Avere in your place. 
I Avould give up fifty engagements for the chance 
of having a long e\’ening Avith Mr. Frost.” 

“I am sure Mr. Frost Avould be immensely 
obliged to you, Betsy! I’ll tell him,” said 
Georgina, Avith a languid smile. 

All this time Mrs. LoA^egroA^e Avas sitting si- 
lent, Avith her yelloAv gloves folded in her lap. 
She felt very uncomfortable. She had thought 
to find Mrs. Frost alone, and to haAe draAvn 
from her some Avord about the business Avdiich 
had so excited her curiosity. But Mrs. Love- 
grove was not recklessly indiscreet ; she Avould 
not have thought of touching on the topic before 
a stranger, although she AA'ould haA'e thought it 
fair to find out, if she could, all that Mrs. Frost 
knew about it. And noAv here Avas this simper- 
ing old Avoman, in whose presence she could not 
say a Avord, and AA'hose dress ]\Irs. Lovegrove Avas 
inclined to consider a disgrace to a Christian 
country. And, besides, neither IVIrs. Frost nor 
her guest seemed to take any notice of her ! 

The simpering old Avoman, hoAvever, very un- 
expectedly turned round just as Mrs. Lovegrove 
Avas thinking these thoughts, and said, in a brisk, 
good-humored manner: “Now I Avant you to 
present me to Mrs. Lovegrove, Georgina.” 

Mrs. Frost someAvhat ungraciously complied. 

“Miss Boyce — Mrs. LoA^egroA’e. ” 

“I am an old friend of Mrs. Frost’s,” said 
Miss Boyce, “ and I don’t approve of the fashion 
of not introducing people.” 

“Every body is supposed to know every body 
else, ” said Mrs. Frost. 

Mrs. Lovegrove quite understood that she, aa’Iio 
lived in Bedford Square, Avas not included in the 
“every body.” But she merely boAA-ed rather 
grimly, and said nothing. 

“Oh, but that’s a A'ery nonsensical supposi- 
tion, my dear,” returned Betsy Boyce, waAung 
her hand up and doAAm contemptuously. “ That 
rule can only apply to a very limited and ex- 
clusive circle indeed ; and not to your ‘ every 
body,’ nor my ‘ every body’ either!” 

Mrs. LovegroA'e felt quite grateful to this odd 
little jjerson ; and began to think that her gay 
petticoat Avas not quite so short as she had at 
first supposed. 

“ Well ; and isn’t this a queer business about 
Sir John Tallis?” proceeded Miss Boyce, Avith- 
out the least circumlocution. 

Mrs. Lovegrove, being uncertain hoAv much 
the other Avoman kneAv, shook her head mys- 
teriously, and said, “But is it all true that AA’e 
hear?” 

“All true? I should suppose not. "Very fcAv 
things that one hears are all true. But I believe 
there is no doubt that the man is dead — died 
rather suddenly I Avas told — and that he has left 
a tangle of trouble behind him. UnraA’el it Avho 
can!” 


VERONICA. 


113 


“What has lie left?” asked Mrs. Frost. She 
had been leaning back in her chair calculating 
how many yards of some fine old point lace that 
she had seen would suffice to trim her purple 
velvet gown, and wondering whether Mr. Frost’s 
business in Naples had gone well enough to make 
him generous with his money. 

“My goodness, Georgina! I say he has left 
misery and worry and vexation, and perhaps 
worse, behind him.” 

“ How do you mean ?” 

“How do I mean! Why onl}’- think what a 
dreadful position that poor dear girl, the nicest, 
sweetesfcreature, Maud Desmond, will be placed 
in ! They say that that young woman, the vic- 
ar’s daughter — I’m sorry to say I have a very 
bad opinion of Aer, and had from the first mo- 
ment I saw her handsome face — claims to be 
Sir John’s widow. And Maud Desmond was 
brought up with her as a sister. The vicar is 
her guardian. Poor Lady Tallis was her aunt. I 
never heard of such a horrid entanglement.” 

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Frost, “if Miss Des- 
mond cares about the person who went abroad 
with Sir John Gale, I suppose she will find it 
more satisfactory that her friend should have 
been duly mamed to him.” 

“But, my goodness, Georgina, you don’t ap- 
pear to understand the case,” said Miss Boyce, 
impetuously. 

“No, I dare say I do not,” replied Mrs. Frost, 
with a shrug which said plainly, “and I don’t 
care to understand it. ” 

Miss Boyce chattered yolubly, pouring out 
statements, some of which were true, some found- 
ed on fact, and some as airily unreal as the 
“baseless fabric of a vision.” She had heard 
something of a will left by Sir John Gale ; but 
that part of her information, was very vague and 
confused. Some people had told her that Miss 
Desmond would inherit a million of money ; oth- 
ers declared that the vicar’s daughter would have 
it all ; a third story was that Sir John had be- 
queathed the bulk of his wealth to a newly-dis- 
covered relative of his in Naples. 

“But how in the world did you hear all this ?” 
asked Mrs. Lovegrove, during a breathless pause 
in Miss Boyce’s talk. 

Miss Boyce was rather flattered by the question. 

“Oh, my dear soul,” she answered, smiling 
shrewdly, “although I do not know quite ‘ev- 
ery body,’ I have a considerable circle of ac- 
quaintance nevertheless. And as to hearing, I 
never wonder at people hearing of things ; I’m 
only puzzled when they donH hear of ’em ! The 
w'orld is very small, after all. And I declare to 
you that I often solemnly thank Providence that 
I have no episode in my life to hide, either for 
my own sake or any one else’s ; for I protest on 
my honor the fable of the ostrich burying his 
head in the sand is a trifle to the sort of thing I 
observe in the world, where, positively, people 
will tie a bit of a gauze veil over their noses, and 
fancy that nobody can see through it ! ” 

Mrs. Lovegrove returned to Bedford Square 
primed with intelligence, which, like a good wife, 
slie was minded dutifully to share with her hus- 
band. 

But he met her first words with a grave ad- 
monition to say as little as possible on the sub- 
ject of Sir John Tallis Gale’s affairs. 

“Frost brings a queer account of the state of 
H 


the case. There is, it seems, a will. But if the 
I second marriage be proved valid, the will is, of 
I course, waste paper, ” said Mr. Lovegrove. 

“ My dear Augustus, let me understand ! Who 
inherits the property under the will ?” 

“The last person one would expect to inherit 
it : Miss Desmond !” 

Mrs. Lovegrove’s maternal thoughts flew back 
to her son. If Maud should prove to be an 
heiress, and if she could be induced to like Au- 
gustus ! 

She said a word or two on the subject to her 
husband. But Mr. Lovegrove’s feeling on the 
matter was not quite in harmony with her own. 

“Augustus is a capital fellow,” said the fa- 
ther; “but I don’t believe he has a chance in 
that quarter.” 

“Why not? He would be a husband any 
young woman ought to be proud and thankful to 
win !” 

“I suppose most mothers say the same of 
their sons, Sarah. But put the case that our 
Dora were to come into a great fortune, would 
you think such a young man as Augustus a fit- 
ting match for her ?” 

“ That’s quite different — ” 

“Aha! It is, is it?” 

“Be so good as not to interrupt me, Mr. 
Lovegrove. I mean — I mean — that I don’t 
know where to find such another young man as 
Augustus. I’m sure any girl might go down on 
her knees and thank Heaven for such a husband 
as Augustus.” 

“Did you go down on your knees and thank 
Heaven, when I proposed to you, Sally ? I don’t 
much believe in the girls doing that sort of 
thing.” 

And then Mr. Lovegrove retired behind his 
newspaper, and no more was said on the subject 
between the husband and wife. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE NEW BARONET. 

• 

Veronica, Lady Gale, as she styled herself, 
was established in g, respectable, but by no means 
fashionable, hotel, at the West End of London. 
She had brought none of the Italian servants 
with her, and had even dismissed her French 
maid, and taken in her stead a middle-aged Swiss 
woman of staid ugliness. 

For Prince Cesare de’ Barletti lodgings had 
been found, within a convenient distance of the 
hotel. At these modest apartments he was known 
as Signor Barletti merely. And this temporary 
lopping of his title had been executed at Veroni- 
ca’s express desire, lest the glories which she had 
anticipated sharing with him by-and-by should 
be tarnished in their passage through regions of 
comparative poverty and obscurity. She also 
had enjoined on Cesare to keep himself aloof 
from such of his compatriots as he might chance 
to meet in London. This latter injunction, how- 
ever, he had not kept to the letter. 

The truth was that poor Cesare was desperate- 
ly dull and forlorn. Ilis visits to Veronica were 
of the most rigidly formal character, and the in- 
variable presence of the Swiss maid during these 
interviews had caused some sharp words to pass 
between the cousins. 


lU 


VEKONICA. 


“At Naples, at least, I could see you and I 
speak to you, sometimes, without a hideous du- 
enna,” complained Cesare. 

“At Naples things were different. Have pa- 
tience. We must risk nothing by imprudence. 
Louise understands no Italian. You can say 
what you please before her. ” 

“ But I hate the sight of her. Dio mio, how 
ugly she is !” 

Then Veronica would bid him go out and 
amuse himself. But he declared that London 
depressed his spirits with a leaden weight ; that 
he could not speak ten words of English so as to 
be understood, nor understand half that number 
when spoken ; that he could not w'ander about 
the streets all day ; that he had no club to re- 
sort to ; that London was cold, ugly, smoky, 
noisy, dull ; and that there had not even been 
one fog since his arrival — a spectacle he had all 
his life longed to see. 

At this climax Veronica lost patience. 

“In short,” she observed, disdainfully, “you 
are like a spoiled child, and don’t know what you 
want.” 

“ On the contrary, I know but too well. Cara, 
if I could only be with you, the time would pass 
quickly enough. But I am more banished from 
your society now than I was when — he was alive.” 

And in his utter ennui Cesare had scraped ac- 
quaintance with certain of his own countrymen, 
who frequented a foreign cafe, and smoked many 
a cigar with men whose appearance would have 
mortified Veronica to the quick, could she have 
beheld her cousin in their company. And yet 
the difference of a coat would have transformed 
some of them into as good men as he, even in- 
cluding the pedigree of the Barlettis in the list 
of his advantages. But it was just the coat 
which Veronica would very w’ell have understood 
to be of extreme importance. 

Mr. Frost had, as he had said to Hugh Lock- 
wood, declined to act as Veronica’s legal adviser. 
But he had, at Cesare’s request, given her the 
name of a respectable lawyer who would assume 
the responsibility of looking after her interests. 
Cesare could not be got to understand Mr. Frost’s 
motives for not conducting the case himself, but 
Veronica declared that she understood them. 

Meanwhile there had been several interviews 
between Mr. Lane and the respective lawyers of 
feir Matthew Gale and Veronica. 

Mr. Simpson, Veronica’s lawyer, of course 
quickly perceived that the new baronet had no 
interest in establishing the validity of the will. 
If it were established, he inherited nothing be- 
yond the entailed estate ; if it were set aside, he 
would receive a certain proportion of the person- 
al property. Sir Matthew’s lawyer, Mr. Davis, 
perceived this also as soon as he was made ac- 
quainted with the contents of the will. It had 
been read at Mr. Lane’s office, there being pres- 
ent Sir Matthew, Mr. Frost, the agent — who, it 
will be remembered, was named executor — and 
the two lawyers above mentioned. 

Mr. Simpson, a heavy-mannered, pasty-faced 
man, with two dull black eyes, like currants stuck 
in dough, conceived the idea of making Sir 
Matthew acquainted with his client. Their in- 
terests were nearly identical, and he felt that it 
would be a desirable thing for “Lady Gale” to 
be recognized by the late baronet’s successor. 
He trusted, too, to the effects of the lady’s per- i 


sonal influence on the shy, awkward, provincial 
bachelor. 

The meeting w^as consequently brought about. 

“ It can do you no harm to call on her. Sir 
Matthew,” said Mr. Davis. “It would not prej- 
udice your case to say she was Lady Tallis Gale 
fifty times over.” 

“I — I — I wish to do what’s right, Davis. It’s 
ticklish work meddling with wills, you know.” 

“Meddling! God forbid, my dear Sir Mat- 
thew! But this either is a will, or it is not, you 
see. That is what we have got to prove. If it 
is a will, the dispositions of the testator must be 
held sacred — sacred. If it is not a will, you ob- 
serve, the testator’s intentions are — In short, 
it is quite another matter,” responded Mr. Davis, 
winding up a little abruptly. 

Sir Matthew called at the hotel at which Ve- 
ronica w'as staying. He was accompanied at his 
own request by Mr. Davis, and, on sending up 
their cards, they were both ushered into Veroni- 
ca’s presence. 

She was dressed in deep mourning, of the rich- 
est materials and most elegant fashion, and look- 
ed strikingly lovely. 

“I am glad to see you. Sir Matthew,” shj? 
said, making him a superb courtesy, which so 
embarrassed him that, in his attempt to return 
it by as good a bow as he knew how to make, he 
backed upon Mr. Davis, and nearly hustled him 
into the fire-place. 

“It is naturally gratifying to me to be on 
good terms with my late husband’s family,” pur- 
sued Veronica, when the two men were seated. 

“Thank you, ma’am — I mean my — my lady 
— that is — Of course, you know, we must 
mind what we’re about, and do what’s right and 
just, . and not make any mistakes, you know. 
That was always my rule w'hen I was in busi- 
ness.” 

“ An excellent nile !” 

“Yes. And as to your late — as to Sir John 
Gale’s family — I don’t suppose you ever heard 
much good o^ them from' him^ ma’am. My 
cousin John Avas an overweening kind of a man. 
But w'e come of the same stock, him and me.” 

“ Certainly.” 

“Yes. We come of the same stock. There’s 
no doubt of that in the world. ” 

Sir Matthew rubbed his knee round and round 
with his handkerchief, which he had doubled up 
into a ball for the purpose ; and looked at every 
part of the room save that in which Veronica 
Avas seated. 

She was in her element. Here was an oppor- 
tunity to charm, to dazzle, to surprise. This 
man was vulgar, rather mean, and not overwise. 
No matter, he could be made to admire her — and 
he should ! 

It was already evident that Sir ISIatthew had 
not expected to find so elegant and dignified a 
lady in the person wdio claimed to be his cousin’s 
widow. The history of her relations with Sir. 
John was known to him, and the ideas conjured 
up by such a history in the mind of a man like 
Matthew Gale were greatly at variance Avith Ve- 
ronica’s manners and aspect. 

“I am sorry that Sir John was not on terms 
with his veiy few surviving relatives,” she said, 
with the least possible touch of hauteur. “You 
see his path in life had been very different from 
I theirs.” 


VERONICA. 


‘ ‘ So much the better for tliem^ if all tales be 
true!” exclaimed Sir Matthew. He had now 
screwed his handkerchief into a rope, and was 
fettering his leg with it. 

Veronica was not embarrassed by having to 
meet his eyes, for he turned them studiously 
away from her. Her cheek glowed a little, but 
she answered, quietly, “Family differences are 
of all others the most difficult of adjustment. I 
have never entered into them. But I hope we 
may be friends.” 

She said the words with such an air of infinite 
condescension — of almost protecting good -na- 
ture, that Sir IMatthew felt himself obliged to 
reply, “Oh, thank you, ma’am — I mean my 
lady!” 

Mr. Davis was lost in admiration of this young 
woman’s* talents. “Why, she might have been 
a duchess, or any thing else she liked!” thought 
he, marking the impression that her manner was 
producing on Sir Matthew. 

“My feeling on the matter,” said Mr. Davis, 
“ is that we should try to avoid litigation.” 

“Litigation !” echoed Veronica, turning pale. 
“ Oh yes, yes. Litigation would be terrible !” 

The word represented to her imagination brow- 
beating counselors, newspaper scurrility, and the 
publicity of that “ fierce light that beats upon” a 
court of law. She had all along shrunk from the 
idea of going to law. She had relied on Mr. 
Frost’s dictum, that if her marriage could be 
proved to be valid, there would be no further 
question of the will. And she rested all her 
hopes on this point. 

“/ sha’n’t litigate,” said Sir Matthew, quickly. 

‘ ‘ I don’t see what I’ve got to litigate about. The 
bit of money that would come to me wouldn’t be 
worth it. For there’s lots of second, and third, 
and maybe fourth cousins, for what I know, 
that ’ll turn up to divide the property, if it is to 
be divided. And my motto always has been, 

‘ Keep out of the way of the law.’ You^l ex- 
cuse me, Mr. Davis ! ” And Sir Matthew laughed 
with a dim sense of having made a joke, and hav- 
ing in some way got the better of his attorney. 

‘ ‘ The only person that has any thing to go to 
law about, as far as I can see,” said Sir Mat- 
thew, after a minute’s pause, “ is the person that 
inherits the property under the will ! This Miss 
Desmond. I don’t know why my cousin John 
should have gone and left all his money to his 
wife’s niece. He was none so fond of her fam- 
ily, nor of her, during his lifetime ! And I fancy 
they looked down on him. I suppose he did it 
just to spite his own relations.” 

Veronica was silent. 

“Oh, by-the-way,” pursued Sir Matthew, 
“there’s some one else that wouldn’t much like 
the will to be set aside — that’s Mr. Lane. He’s 
executor, and a legatee, besides, to the tune of a 
couple of thousand pounds.” 

“Mr. Lane appears to be an honest, upright 
person,” said Veronica. “ I have seen him once 
or twice. And he speaks very reasonabl3\” 

]\Ir. Davis glanced piercingly at Veronica. 

“ Oh, ’’said he; “ your ladyship finds Mr. Lane 
reasonable ?” 

At this moment the door was opened, and 
Cesare walked into the room. He stared a little 
at the two men, neither of whom he had ever 
seen before. But Veronica hastily informed him, 
in Italian, who the visitors were, and turning to 


115 

Sir Matthew, presented Cesare to him as “My 
cousin, Prince Cesare de’ Barletti.” 

Cesare bowed, and said, “ Ow-dew-doo ?” 

Sir Matthew bowed, and said nothing ; but he 
was considerably impressed by Cesare’s title. 

“Oh, I didn’t know,” he stammered ; “ I was 
not aware — I mean I had never heard that you 
were— connected with foreigners, ma’am, so to 
speak.” 

“My mother,” said Veronica, with graceful 
nonchalance, “was a daughter of the house of 
Barletti. The principality is in the south of the 
Neapolitan district.” 

“Oh, really!” said Sir IMatthew. 

“IMr. Simpson informed me that he was to 
have an interview with INIiss Desmond’s guardian 
to-day,” said Mr. Davis, addressing Veronica. 

“ Her — guardian ?” said Veronica, breathless- 
ly. The word had sent a shock through her 
frame. Maud’s guardian ! Why that was her 
father! “Is he — is he here?” she asked, 
quickly. 

“Oh yes. Did you not know? It is a Mr. 
Lovegrove, of Frost and Lovegrove. A very well- 
known firm.” 

“ Ah ! ^pii yes, I understand.” 

‘ ‘ Mr. Lm egrove acts for Miss Desmond, I un- 
derstand. Do you know if IMr. Simpson has 
been at the Admiralty since I saw him ? I read 
the other day that the Furihond was paid off at 
Portsmouth last week. ” 

‘ ‘ I believe he has,” answered Veronica, faintly. 

“Then, madam, I make bold to say that, un- 
less the other side are determined to litigate at 
all hazards, you will soon be put out of suspense.” 

Cesare’s ear had caught the faint tones of 
Veronica’s voice, and Cesare’s anxious eye had 
marked her pallor and agitation as the prospect 
of a speedy verdict on her fate was placed before 
her. He came immediately to her side. “ Thou 
art not well, dearest,” he said, in his own lan- 
guage. 

“Yes, quite well. Don’t make a scene, Ce- 
sare ! I will go into my room for a smelling- 
bottle, and come back directly. ” 

“ Can I not ring for Louise?” 

“No. Stay here.” 

And Veronica, with a muraiured apology to 
Sir Matthew, glided out of the room. 

“Is any thing the matter with Lady — with 
your — with the lady?” asked Sir Matthew. 

Cesare, left alone with the two Englishmen, 
felt himself called upon to make a great conver- 
sational effort. He inflated his chest slowly, and 
answered : 

“ She — went — for — some — salt.” 

“Eh?” exclaimed Sir Matthew, staring at 
him. 

‘ ‘ English salt. Sale inglese. Come si dice ?” 

In his despair Cesare raised his closed fist to 
his nose and gave a prolonged sniff. 

“Aha!” said Mr. Davis, with a shrewd air. 
“To be sure; smelling salts. Eh? Headache?” 

“Yes: eddekke.” 

“Poor lady! She has been a good deal ex- 
cited. Her position is a very trying one. ” 

“Very well,” said Cesare, a good deal to Sir 
Matthew’s bewilderment. But Cesare merely in- 
tended an emphatic affirmative. 

Sir Matthew would have liked to strike into 
the conversation himself, but was withheld by 
an embarrassing ignorance of the proper form in 


116 


VERONICA. 


which to address Rarletti. He could not certain- 
ly call him “your highness,” and while he was 
deliberating on the propriety of saying senior — 
which was his notion of pronouncing the Italian 
for “ sir” — Veronica returned. 

She looked a changed creature. Her cheeks 
were flushed, and her eyes Extraordinarily lus- 
trous. *' 

“Hope you’re better, ma’am,” said Sir Mat- 
thew. 

‘ ‘ Thank you. I have been suffering a little 
from headache. But it is not severe. I must 
have patience. My nerves have been greatly 
shattered.” 

Her tone w'as so plaintiie, and her face so 
beautiful, as she said t|||s, that Sir Matthew be- 
gan to feel a rising indignation gainst his dead 
cousin, who could find it in his heart to deceive 
so charming a creature. 

“I — I hope it w^ come right for you,” he 
said. “I do, upon my soul!” 

“I only ask for justice. Sir Matthew. I have 
undergone great and unmerited suffering. But 
on that topic ray lips* are sealed.” 

Sir Matthew thought this very noble, and 
looked at Mr. Davis for syrapath\^ But the 
attorney was gazing at Veronica, eyes in 
whose expression admiration was blended with 
a kind of watchful euriosity. 

By the time the visit was brought to a close 
the new baronet was completely converted into 
a partisan of “his cousin’s widow,*' as he now 
markedly entitled her. 

“ She’s not at all the sort of person I had ex- 
pected,” he said to Mr. Davis, as they walked 
away together. 

“Is she not. Sir Matthew?” 

“ And that cousin of hers — I suppose he *5 
really a prince, eh ?” 

“I suppose so — an Italian prince.” 

“Yes, of course. Well, it isn’t for the sake 
of the share of the money that would come to 
me — I’ve got the entailed estate, and no thanks 
to my cousin John eitjier! He would. have left 
it away from me if he could. No, it isn’t for 
that ; but I do hope her marriage will turn out 
to be all right. ” 

“It can not be long before we know. Sir Mat- 
thew.” 

“Well, I do hope it will come right for her. 
My cousin John behaved shamefully to her. He 
did his best to spite his own family into the bar- 
gain. And I don’t mind saying that I should 
be glad if it turned out to be the case of the biter 
bit. Only,” he added, after a minute’s pause, 
during which he grew almost frightened at his 
o\vn incautious tone, “only, of course we mustn’t 
go and be rash, and get ourselves into any trou- 
ble. A will’s a ■will, you know.” 

“Why that is just what remains to be seen, 
Sir Matthew.” 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE TURNING OF THE SCALE. 

Mr. Simpson, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Lovegrove 
were assembled in the office of the last-named 
gentleman. They had been talking together for 
more than an hour, and, to judge from their coun- 
tenances, the conversation had not been altogeth- 


er pleasant. IMr. Simpson, indeed, preserved a 
pasty placidity of lace. But Mr. Lovegrove look- 
ed angry, and Mi\ Lane sulky. 

“It is a most extraordinary thing,” said Mr. 
Lovegro^, ‘ ‘ that you should have been so luke- 
w'arm in the matter, Mr. Lane.” 

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘luke- 
w'arm.’ If I was to consult my own pocket it 
wouldn’t take long to see which side would be 
best for me,” retorted the agent. “But I am 
not the man to do that. Two thousand pounds 
is of as mueh consequence to me as to most peo- 
ple. But I go according to law and justice.” 

.. “I can’t tell how much you may know about 
justice,” said Mr. Lovegrove, “but I take the 
liberty of supposing that your knowledge of law 
is not extensive.” 

“Well, well,” said Mr. Simpson, moving his 
jaw slowly as he spoke, somewhat in the man- 
ner of a cow chewing the cud, “it don’t take a 
very profound knowledge of the law to under- 
stand the case before us. I suppose you are 
satisfied that the ceremony of marriage on board 
the Furihond did take place. ” 

Mr. Lovegrove passed his hands irritably 
through his hair without answering. 

“And if every thing hadn’t been conducted 
in an honorable way, w'hy should the will' ever 
have turned up at all?” said Mr. Lane. “It 
w^ouldn’t have been so difficult to say nothing 
about it.” 

Mr. Simpson felt this to be injudicious, and 
hastened to say, “Oh, my dear Sir, with the 
parties concerned in this business such a pro- 
ceeding would have been entirely out of the 
question.” 

“ Mr. Lane doesn’t seem to think so,” observed 
Mr. Lovegrove, dryly. 

“No, no, no,” proceeded Mr. Simpson; “it 
is mere w'aste of time to consider such an hypoth- 
esis. Out of the question, entirely out of the 
question. The wiU being there, my client’s first 
proceeding was to show it to a respectable and 
well-knowm lawyer — your own partner, Mr. 
Lovegrove — and to intrust it to him for safe- 
keeping.” 

“I don’t know what could be fairer or more 
honorable,” put in Mr. Lane. 

“It was a matter of course that the proceed- 
ings of the lady in question should be fair and 
honorable.” 

“Mr. Lane doesn’t seem to think so,” said 
Mr. Lovegrove again. 

Mr. Simpson interposed to prevent a retort 
from the agent. ‘ ‘ Permit me, ’’said he. ‘ ‘ The 
lady in question w'as treated in the most heart- 
less and treacherous manner. But my present 
business is not to insist upon that part of her 
story. The question is, was the first Lady Tal- 
lis living or dead at the time of the seeond mar- 
riage ?” 

“Sir John supposed her to be alive. That 
much is clear,” said Mr. Lovegrove. “He 
never intended to make Miss Levincourt his 
wife.” 

“Possibly. But I need not remind you, Mr. 
Lovegrove, that persons can not play fast and 
loose with the manlage ceremony to gratify their 
own convenience or evil passions.” 

Mr. Lane opined, under his brbath, that it 
would be a pretty sort of game if they could. 

“ I have laid before you,” continued Mr. Simp- 


VERONICA. 


son, looking as though he were engaged on the 
mastication of a very tough mouthful indeed, 
“ the proofs of the performance of the marriage 
ceremony between the late Sir John Gale and 
Miss Levincourt. You are not at present pre- 
pared to bring forward any testimony as to the 
hour at which Lady Tallis Gale expired ?” 

“Mr. Frost is of opinion,” said Mr. Love- 
grove, “that Mrs. Lockwood’s testimony, and 
that of the servaiit-girl, will go to prove — 

Mr. Lovegrove paused in his speech as the 
door of his office was opened, and one of his 
clerks appeared. 

“I said that you were particularly engaged. 
Sir,” said the young man, “but the gentleman 
would take no denial. He said that — ” 

“ What do you mean by admitting any one at 
this moffient ? Who is it ?” 

“Mr. Hugh Lockwood, Sir,” answered the 
clerk, making good his retreat as Hugh pushed 
past him and entered the room. 

There was a momentaiy silence and pause of 
expectation. 

“ Mr. Lockwood,” said Mr. Lovegrove, grave- 
ly, “I am sorry you have chosen this moment 
for insisting on seeing me. If my clerk did not 
succeed in making you understand that I am 
particularly engaged, I must tell you so myself 
in plain terms.” 

“I ask pardon of you, and of these gentle- 
men,” said Hugh ; “ but I think you will excuse 
me when you know that the business on which I 
come is precisely the business you are engaged 
in discussing.” 

Hugh’s manner was very resolute and quiet. 
He looked like a man who has recently subdued 
some strong emotion to his will. Mr. Lane 
stared at him undisguisedly. Mr. Simpson ob- 
serv'ed him in his ruminating manner.* Mr. Love- 
grove made answer: “May I inquire how you 
know what is the business we are engaged in dis- 
cussing?” 

“If I mistake not, you are discussing the le- 
gality of the second maryage of the late Sir J olin 
Tallis Gale.” 

“Quite so,” said Mr. Simpson. “Have you 
any information to give us on the subject ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Mr. Lockwood,” said Mr. Lovegrove, hasti- 
ly, “ allow me to say one word. This gentle- 
man is acting on behalf of the lady who calls 
herself Lady Tallis Gale. This gentleman is the 
appointed executor of the will of the late baron- 
et. I am only sorry that I can not add that I 
am fully empowered to act for Miss Desmond in 
this matter as I should desire to do. From the 
peculiar and painful circumstances of the case I 
have not been able to urge Miss Desmond’s 
guardian — who is co-trustee with me under her 
mother’s will — to come forward and look after 
her interests. But as far as my legal knowledge 
and services can avail her, they are entirely at 
her disposal. Now, believing you to be the 
young lady’s, friend, j strongly advise you to re- 
frain from volunteering any statement on this 
subject at the present moment. Observe, I have 
no idea of what nature your statement may be. 
But I assure you that you had better leave the 
matter in my hands. ” 

‘ ‘ Mr. Lovegrove, you speak in a manner which 
commands my sincerest respect, and will cer- 
tainly make Miss Desmond very grateful. But 


117 

I come here at Miss Desmond’s urgent re- 
quest, ” 

“Indeed, Sir?” said Mr. Simpson, who had 
listened attentively. “Are you a relative of the 
young lady’s ?” 

Before Hugh could speak, Mr. Lane answered 
in a hoarse whispeif “ He’s the son of the person 
in whose house Lady T. died. ” 

Mr. Simpson’s ruminating jaw moved slowly, 
but he said nothing. 

“ I will answer for myself, if you please, Mr. 
Lane,” said Hugh, to whom the agent was slight- 
ly known. Then, turning to Mr. Simpson, he 
continued: “No, I am not a relative of Miss 
Maud Desmond, b^t she is my promised wife. 
Our engagement was sectioned by Lady Tallis, 
and by — Miss l^esmoiiTs guardian. ” 

Mr. Lovegrove made a little suppressed sound 
with closed lips, and raised his eyebrows in sur- 
prise. “Oh,” said Mr. Simpson, slowly, “oh, 
indeed ! And you have, v'^u say, some informa- 
tion to give respecting the hour at which Lady 
Tallis died?” 

“I have the only information to give which 
can be of value ; for I was the last person who 
saw the j^r lady alive. ” 

The tlQe men looked at each other without 
speaking. Mr. Simpson made his face as near- 
ly blank of expression as possible. But there 
was a gleam of expectation in Mr. Lovegrove’s 
eyes as he turned them again on Hugh. 

“ It happened in this way,” proceeded Hugh. 
“ I will tell you the circumstances as plainly and 
shortly as I can. On the night preceding the 
day she died — ” 

“That is to say, on the night of the third of 
March ?” asked Mr. Simpson. 

“ Yes, on the night of the third of March, 
Lady Tallis had been very ill, and had suffered 
from difficulty of breathing. It had been found 
necessjiry for some one to sit up with her. That 
had happened once or twice before. But on this 
occasion she seemed so ill that neither my mo- 
ther nor Miss Desmond went to bed at all. In 
the morning, quite early. Lady Tallis fell asleep. 
And then my mother sent Miss Desmond to rest. 
She — my mother — went down into the kitchen 
to prepare some beef-tea, for which the sick wo- 
man had asked. The little servant-maid was 
busy about her household tasks. I had made 
up my mind not to go to business that morning, 
and as it was desirable that some one should be 
within call of Lady Tallis, I took a book and 
sat in the drawing-room, which opened by a 
folding-door from her bedroom.” 

“This w’as at what hour?” asked Mr. Simp- 
son. 

“I can not say with accuracy. But certainly 
’ between seven and eight o’clock. During the 
fii'st part of the time that I sat there my mother 
came up stairs with the beef-tea, and found Lady 
Tallis still sleeping. She seemed so peaceful and 
tranquil that I persuaded my mother, who was 
much worn out, to take some rest on the sofa in 
our little parlor down stairs, saying that I would 
remain at my post. Well, I sat there a long 
time — or what seemed a long time. The house 
was very quiet : and at that period of the day 
our street is not noisy. There was scarcely a 
sound to be heard. All at once, as I sat alone 
in the silence, a strange feeling came over me 
that I must go into the next room and look at 


118 


VERONICA. 


the sleeper. I could not tell why then, and I 
can not tell why now, hut the impulse was irre- 
sistible. I got up softly and went to the bed- 
side. And then in an instant I saAV that there 
was death. I had never seen a dead person be- 
fore, but there was no mistaking that solemn 
look.” 

“No mistaking!” echoed Mr. Lovegrove. 
“How can you know that? Your impression, 
the mere result of your looking at her, may 
have been erroneous. She may have been still 
asleep. ” 

“She was in that sleep that awaits us all, and 
from which there is no awaking. I stood and 
contemplated her face for a minute or so. The 
eyes were shut, the forehead placid ; she had not 
even moved on her pillow. Although I was per- 
fectly convinced that she was dead, I took a lit- 
tle hand-mirror from the toilet-table and held it 
to her lips. There was not a breath.” 

“Still,” said Mr. Lovegrove, catching a glance 
that was exchanged between Mr. Lane and Mr. 
Simpson, you do not know at what hour 

this took place. Your guessing is of no use !” 

“Wait. It is true I do not know exactly 
the moment at which Lady Tallis ceased to live ; 
but I know what will suffice, as you will see. I 
knew that the first thing to be done was to get 
some one to render the last services to the dead. 
There was a woman living near at hand, who had 
occasionally come in to help to nurse our poor 
friend, and I knew that she would be able to do 
what was needed. I resolved to go myself and 
fetch her without disturbing my mother or Maud. 
I went out of the front-door quietly, sought for, 
and found the woman I spoke of, and brought 
her back to our house before any one there knew 
that I had left it. And as I turned into our street 
to come home the church clocks were striking 
half past nine.” 

“That,” said Mr. Simpson, rising from his 
chair, “ is conclusive. I have evidence to prove 
beyond a doubt that the ceremony on board the 
ship was not commenced before a quarter to ten 
at the earliest.” 

There was a dead pause. 

Mr. Simpson deliberately gathered together 
his papers. Mr. Lane took up his hat. Mr. 
Lovegrove remained in his chair with his hands 
thrust deep into his pockets. 

“I presume,” said Mr. Simpson, “that you 
perceive how unassailably strong Mr. Lockwood's 
testimony makes Lady Gale’s case ? My client 
is, I assure you, greatly averse to litigation, very 
greatly averse to it. But if Mr. Lockwood is pre- 
})ared — as no doubt he is — to repeat upon oath 
every detail he has just given us, I should ad- 
vise Lady Gale, and the next of kin, to resist to 
the uttermost all attempt to carry out the provi- 
sions of Sir John’s last will and testament. I 
wish you a good- morning, gentlemen.” 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Simpson. I beg to state 
that if Miss Desmond were my client and I were 
empowered to act for her, I should be very far, 
indeed, from considering the cause lost. I am 
not aware what course Miss Desmond will be ad- 
vised to take, but 1 would take the liberty to warn 
you not to be sure of victory even now. And 
good-morning to you, Mr. Lane,” added Love- 
grove, with a considerable change from the tem- 
})erate and courteous tone in which he had ad- 
dressed the other attoniey. “I might condole 


with you on the prospect of losing your legacy if 
I w'ere of Mr. Simpson’s opinion on this matter. 
Though upon my w'ord I never saw' a gentleman 
let two thousand pounds slide through his fingers 
with greater equanimity, or make less effort to 
keep them!” 

When Messieurs Simpson and Lane had de- 
parted, Mr. Lovegrove got up and began pacing 
about the office. Suddenly he stopped opposite 
to Hugh, and addressed him. 

“Do you mean to say that Miss Desmond 
urged you to come and say what you have said 
to that woman’s attorney ?” 

“She did, most earnestly.” 

“And you, w'ell knowing what interests w'ere 
at stake, w’ere fool enough to do it !” 

“Mr. Lovegrove, what I said w'as the truth. 
It might as well be told first as last.” 

“ No, it might not ! And who knows whether 
it ever need have been told at all ? I should 
have taken a very different tone with this self- 
styled Lady Gale. I believe if she had been 
thoroughly frightened and bullied she w'ould not 
have dared to talk of going to law !” 

“But if she had dared — ” 

“Well, I would have fought her.” 

“ That is just w'hat Maud desired to avoid.” 

“ Desired to avoid ? Desired to — IMiss Des- 
mond desired to avoid running any risk of inher- 
iting a fine fortune duly and legitimately be- 
queathed to her ?” 

“You know what her life has been. You 
know that Mr. Levincourt and his daughter have 
been like a father and sister to her from her 
babyhood. And as to Sir John Gale’s money, 
she says she felt as though it would bring a curse 
with it.” 

“Trash! No money brings a curse that is 
honestly come by.” 

“ This would not have been honestly come by. 
I believe that Veronica Levincourt can prove 
herself to have been duly married to Sir John 
Gale. And it would be inexpressibly painful 
and shocking to Maud and to others to force her 
to prove it in a court of law. ” 

“Well, Mr. Lockwood,” said Lovegrove, aft- 
er a minute or two’s pause, “it is clearly no 
concern of mine. But I am interested in Miss 
Desmond for auld lang syne. I knew her mo- 
ther. And she is a very sweet, and I thorough- 
ly believe, a very good young lady. Frost will 
be sorry too — However, I suppose we can not 
interfere.” 

“Mr. Frost will not be surprised ; for I men- 
tioned something of this to him before.” 

“You did?” 

“Yes. Well, now, !Mr. Lovegrove, I must 
thank you very heartily for the sincerity and 
kindness with which you espoused Miss Des- 
mond’s cause. She will be very grateful. She 
goes away with her guardian the day after to- 
morrow. And it is her great effort to keep all 
this painful business from him for the present. 
He knows nothing of it a^ yet. He has lived 
quite secluded in my mother’s house since he 
came up to attend Lady Tallis’s funeral.” 

“Mr. I.evincourt does not know — ?” 

“ Not a word. When they are in the country 
she will tell him as much as is needful.” 

“I wish jMrs. Desmond had appointed me 
guardian to her daughter, instead of — But it 
can’t be helped. It’s an ill wind that blows no- 


VERONICA. 


119 


body good ! The new Lady Gale will just walk 
over the course, I suppose. She is clever : or 
somebody is clever for her. Mr. Lane has been 
marvelously converted to the side of what he 
calls ‘ law and justice.’ ” 

“I presume he Avas convinced that he could 
not fight for the will against the evidence they 
brought.” 

“/ presume that Sir JMatthew Gale and this 
lady have been able to convince him that it 
would be quite as much for his interest to let 
his two thousand pounds go quietly as to strug- 
gle for them. lie does not seem to have had 
any strong desire to carry out his late patron’s 
wishes.” 

“I do not believe that desire was possible in 
the breast of any human being employed by Sir 
John Tallis Gale!” 

“Well, for a man who had his own way, as 
far as I can learn, all his life, it must be admit- 
ted that his power broke down altogether at the 
last in a very strange — I should be inclined to 
say marvelous — manner. ” 

‘ ‘ And when a man’s ‘ way’ is such as his was, 
I don’t know that there is much cause to feel 
surprise at his plans proving barren and futile.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

SUCCESS. 

Cesare had understood partially how desira- 
ble a thing it was for Veronica to be acknowl- 
edged by Sir Matthew Gale. But in his ennui 
and ill-humor he was inclined to be captious and 
jealous. 

“ You could receive those men Avithout having 
Louise in the room ?” he said, reproachfully, aft- 
er the baronet and Mr. Davis Avere gone. 

“Certainly I could !” 

“I suppose if that old blockhead of a Sir Gale 
Avere to come alone, you Avould receive him in 
the same Avay ?” 

“Most likely. What then? *Don’t be ab- 
surd, Cesare.” 

“ Ebbene, I think it A'ery unjust, unkind, cruel, 
that I should be the only person debarred from 
your society in the AA’ay I am !” 

‘ ‘ Debarred from my society ? Dio mio ! It 
seems to me, Cesare, that you are here all day 
long.” 

“ Oh, I trouble you ? I impoi'tune you ? You 
haA'e no heart. You do not loA-e me.” 

Then came a quarrel, not the first by many, 
Avhich ended, as all its predecessors had ended, 
by Cesare’s making humble apologies, and prot- 
estations of deA'otion. 

“Ah, Veronica mia,” he sighed, “I Avish 
sometimes that there had never been any ques- 
tion of this money! You would have married 
me, and Ave should haA^e been together all this 
time. We Avould haA'e gone down to the coun- 
try house beyond Salerno. Hoav happy it Avould 
have been I I hate this England of yours ! I have 
scarcely had a happy moment since I came here. ” 

“Cesare, that sounds all A'ery fine; but how 
much does it mean ? If you and I had married j 
and staid in Italy, we should have been dining 
off dry bread and melon- rinds by this time. 
And hoAV charming for me to be going about in j 
a coarse petticoat and jacket, Avitli a copper pin ' 


stuck in my hair, and no shoes or stockings ! 
Neapolitan peasants are very picturesque at the 
Opera ; but I fancy the real life of the real peo- 
ple would not quite suit you. It Avould not suit 
me, at all events. ” 

“My Avife would not have had to live as you 
say,” remonstrated Cesare. 

“Oh, andiamo, cugino mio! I know pretty 
Avell what sort of style ‘ your wife’ Avould have 
had to live in. And the fact is, Ave should have 
been much worse off than the peasants, because 
Ave should have had to appear something differ- 
ent from Avhat Ave Avere. Shabby gentility — Ouf ! 
it makes me shudder ! And as to 3'our not liking 
England, you know nothing of it yet. If Ave Avere 
rich, Cesare, you Avould see how the Avorld would 
be cap in hand to us !” 

“I don’t think I AA'ant the Avorld to be cap in 
hand to me. I only Avant you to love me, ” an- 
s'vvered Cesare, pathetically. 

Then Veronica gave him her hand and sent 
him away, alleging that she Avas tired. In truth, 
she AA'as tired in spirit. She Avas getting very 
Aveary of Cesare’s complaints and importunities. 
She had felt herself to be in the position of guid- 
ing spirit since their arriAM in London. In Na- 
ples, Avhere she had, while domineering over him, 
depended on him for support in many things, she 
had liked him better. For her OAvn nature was 
too entirely undisciplined not to be irked by the 
task of leading another. Shejiated the trouble 
of thinking, arranging, and deciding. And there 
Avere in her some glimmerings of nobler things, 
Avhich made her scorn herself at times, and con- 
sequently scorn Cesare for his submissive idolatry 
of her. 

As she had once told Maud, she saAv the bet- 
ter and chose the Avorse. If Cesare Avould but 
assume a more manly tone — if he Avould even be 
rough and self-asserting — she fancied she should 
be less discontented. He complained and grum- 
bled, indeed ; but it Avas in the tone of a child 
who vents its temper, Avell knoAving all the Avhile 
that it must finally submit. Once, in a moment 
of irritation, she dropped some Avord of the kind 
to Cesare. And his amazed and sorroAvful re- 
ception of the Avord nearly drove her Avild. 

“I don’t understand you, Veronica,” he had 
said, reproachfully. “It seems to me that you 
are very ungrateful. No Avoman Avas eA’er loved 
more truly than I love you. Do you wish for 
unkindness and tyranny ? Who can comprehend 
a Avoman ?” 

Poor Veronica did not comprehend herself. 
She could not tell him that his complaisance for 
her Avhims, his devotion to her Avishes, alien- 
ated her from him. She could not tell him that 
his humoring of her haughty temper degraded 
her in her OAvn esteem. And yet she Avished to 
love Cesare. She Avas fully minded to become 
Principessa de’Barletti, and the prospect of that 
union without affection afforded a glimpse of 
something so terrible that she shut her mind's 
eyes before it, shuddering. 

But she Avould be true to Cesare. And she 
would love him. Poor Cesare ; he Avas kind and 
gentle, and she was really fond of him. And by- 
and-by — so she told herself — she Avould be able 
to influence and change him in many things. 
But meauAvhile that Avhich she yearned for, and 
thought of at eA'ery solitary moment of her Avak- 
ing time, Avas to see IMaud. 


120 


VERONICA. 


She had been much moved when, at Naples, 
Mr. Frost had made known to her the contents 
of Sir John Gale’s will. For a moment the 
thought had flashed across her mind that she 
would give up her own claim, and allow the will 
to be put in force in Maud’s favor. If she made 
no sign, the will would be proved and executed in 
due course. It was a wildly Quixotic idea, she 
told herself in her calmer moments ; hut it re- 
curred to her again and again. Yet it may be 
truly said that never for one moment did the 
idea amount to an intention. The result to her- 
self of carrying it out would be ignominy, obscu- 
rity, poverty. Poverty ! — No ; that was beyond 
her strength. Maud, she knew, could be happy 
without pomp and wealth ; happier without them 
than their possession could ever make her (Ve- 
ronica). Yet she did not deceive herself with the 
pretense that this knowledge influenced her con- 
duct. 

“I am no canting hypocrite,” she said to her- 
self. 

It is a negative merit not seldom assumed by 
those who find it desirable to feed their egotism 
at all costs. And the implied assumption is, 
“ You, who do not act in accordance with what 
you must feel — for do not I feel it ? — are canting 
hypocrites.” 

But despite every thing, there was in Veroni- 
ca’s heart a cra'snng, hungry desire to see Maud. 
Maud’s had ever been the one influence that had 
awakened whatsoever impulses of good lay dor- 
mant in the vicar’s daughter. Even when she 
had chafed against that influence it had been 
dear to her. And Maud alone, of all the beings 
she had ever known, she had loved unselfishly, 
and from her heart. She shrank from the idea 
of seeing her father as yet. She would like to 
go to him victorious, assured, bearing a new and 
illustrious title, whose blaze should efface what- 
ever dimness now overshadowed her name. She 
knew, without reflecting much about it, that by 
her father much might be forgiven to the Princess 
de’Barletti which could never have been pardoned 
to Veronica Levincourt. But with Maud it was 
different. She thought of Maud day and night, 
and devised schemes for getting to see her, which 
schemes, however, never took shape in ac- 
tion. . 

Late in the afternoon of the day on which Sir 
Matthew Gale had visited her, Mr. Simpson ar- 
rived at her hotel. He had come in all haste to 
be the first to communicate to her the news of 
Hugh Lockwood’s statement. And he was fol- 
lowed within a very few minutes by Mr. Lane, 
who was bound on the same errand. 

“Then,” said Veronica, rising in an excited 
manner, after having heard what they had to tell 
her, “ the cause is won!” 

‘ ‘ I believe that I may safely congratulate you. 
Lady Gale,” said Mr. Simpson. “You will as- 
suredly meet with no opposition from Sir John’s 
family.” 

“And did Mr. Lockwood give this decisive 
testimony voluntarily ?” 

“Oh yes, my lady,” said Mr. Lane. “ That, 
I must say, he did. Mr. Lovegrove showed plain- 
ly enough which way his feelings jumped in the 
matter. If it had depended on him we should 
have had plenty of trouble.” 

“ Mr. Lovegrove was doing what I should have 
done in his place,” said Mr. Simpson, gravely. 


“He was endeavoring to protect Miss Desmond's 
interests. ” 

“ Well, he might have done that without being 
so bumptious. If it hadn’t been for not wishing 
to make trouble for my lady and Sir Matthew, I 
would have given him a good setting do^vn !” 

“Ahem ! I have a great respect for Mr. Love- 
grove,” said Mr. Simpson, in the same slow, im- 
perturbable manner. 

During this talk, Veronica was standing at the 
window, with her back to the two men, and her 
hands pressed on her temples. She was think- 
ing of the strange chance that had made Hugh 
Lockwood the arbiter of her fate. 

There are no limits to the vagaries and self- 
delusions of indulged vanity, none to its glutton- 
ous appetite. There is nothing on earth it will 
not clutch at to feed upon. 

Veronica well remembered the evident admira- 
tion she had exeited in Hugh when they had met 
at Lowater. And without putting it even men- 
tally into words, she had an idea that his coming 
forward unasked to give witness in her favor, was 
in some way due to the resistless influence of her 
beauty. What would he think when he learned 
that she was to be Princess Barletti ? The ques- 
tion gai^e rise to some not unpleasing specula- 
tions, Mr. Lane’s next words, however, rudely 
disturbed them. 

“Young Lockwood certainly did behave very 
straightforward. I wonder that Mr. Lovegrove 
didn’t bully Mm! For if I lost two thousand 
pounds by the business, young Lockwood lost 
more, seeing that he is engaged to the young 
lady.” 

Veronica tunied round to listen. 

“I must be going now. Lady Gale,” said Mr. 
Simpson. “I merely wanted to give you the 
news. There is a great deal to be done yet. I 
must try to see Mr. Davis without delay.” 

“ One moment, if you please, Mr. Simpson. 
Did you say that Mr. Lockwood was — was — ” 

“Engaged,” put in Mr. Lane. “Yes, my 
lady ; he is engaged to marry iMiss Desmond — 
so he said, at least. I believe him to be a most 
respectable young man,” added the agent, with 
a patronizing air. 

Considerably to Mr. Lane’s surprise, Veroni- 
ca, after having given her hand to Mr. Simpson 
as' he took his leave, dismissed him (Lane) with 
a haughty bow. And Mr. Lane observed to the 
lawyer, before they parted company at the hotel 
door, that “ my lady” was beginning to give her- 
self great airs already. 

Left alone in the gathering dusk, Veronica 
began to pace up and down the room, in a rest- 
less manner that had recently become habitual 
with her. She had gained what she had striven 
for. She was Lady Gale. And although the 
whole of Sir John's vast fortune would not be 
hers, she would still be a rich w'oman — rich even 
in rich England. She W'ould be reinstated in the 
world, and take a far higher rank than that of a 
mere baronet’s lady. All that she had longed 
for and dreamed of since her childhood seemed 
to be within her grasp. 

Of ten persons who should have seen her, 
knowing her story, nine would certainly have 
concluded that it was on this important revolu- 
tion of Fortune’s wheel she was meditating, as 
she passed regularly up and down the room, the 
heavy folds of her long black dress making a 


VERONICA. 


monotonous dull rustling sound on the carpet. 
But it was not so. How often it happens that 
the outer and the inner life are thus distinct and 
different ! That which we strive for, is often not 
that which really most occupies our hearts. 
There was as yet no flavor of Dead Sea fruit in 
Fortune’s gifts to Veronica. She believed still, 
as she had believed at fifteen, that to be rich, 
fashionable, envied, and flattered, would suffice 
to make her happy. But in these very first 
moments of her triumph, her thoughts and feel- 
ings were busy with Maud and Hugh ! 

All at once she ceased her pacing to and fro, 
and seating herself at a little table covered with 
writing materials, she dashed off a hurried note. 
She wrote without pause, almost as though she 
feared she might repent what she was doing, if 
she staid to reflect on it. Having written and 
sealed the note, which consisted only of a few 
lines, she gave orders that a messenger should be 
dispatched with it forthwith. 

“ Where is it to go, my lady ?” asked the 
waiter. 

The tidings o^ Veronica’s golden fortunes 
must, one would have thought, have hovered 
in the air, or emanated from herself in some 
subtle manner, for the man, always civil, was 
now obsequious. 

“It must be taken to Mr. Lovegrove, the 
solicitor in Bedford Square. He is easily to be 
found. There is my card. Give my compli- 
ments, and say that I shall be exceedingly 
obliged if Mr. Lovegrove will do me the favor 
to add the number of the house to the address 
on this note. Then let the messenger take 
the note to Gower Street without delay. He 
had best drive. Let him take a cab, and go 
quickly.”. 

The reader may as "well see the contents of 
the note : 

“I thank you for what you have done for me 
to-day. But my thanks are doubtless of small 
value in your eyes. 

“But I have a request — an entreaty to make to 
you. Let me see Maud. I shall be quite alone 
all this evening and to-morrow. Others may 
think me triumphant, but tell Maud — oh ! pray 
tell Maud — that I long and yearn to see her and 
to hear her voice. 

“I only learned to-day that you are to be her 
husband. Veronica Gale. 

“ I trust to you to speak of this to no one but 
Maud. 

“To IIuGii Lockwood, Esq." 


CIIAPTER VIIi. 

CONFESSION. 

Hugh did not communicate to his mother the 
fact of his interview with Mr. Frost until after 
his visit to Mr. Lovegrove’s office, and he in- 
formed her of both circumstances at the same 
time. He could not refrain from saying a word 
about her having kept Mr. Frost’s visit to Gower 
Street a secret from him. 

“I was so surprised, mother,” he said. “It 
seemed so unlike you. But I suppose he per- 
suaded you in some way that it would be right 
not to mention his having come to our house. ” 


121 

“Was I bound to speak of it, Hugh — before 
Maud, too, and Mr. Levincourt?” 

“ No, of course not bound. But it would have 
seemed more natural if you had mentioned it 
quietly to me.” 

Mrs. Lockwood was silent. 

“Look here, mother dear, ’’said Hugh, after 
a short silence, “ I am not good at hiding what 
I feel. I was a little hurt and vexed when Mr. 
Frost told me that you and he had privately dis- 
cussed my feeling for Maud long before you had 
ever said a word to me on that subject. Now 
the truth is out!” 

“He — Mr. Frost — told you that, Hugh?” 

“Well, he did not say it verbatim et literatim, 
as I have said it ; but he certainly gave me to 
understand that such was the case.” 

“ I meant for the best, Hugh.” 

“Meant for the best! Dearest mother, you 
don’t suppose I doubt that ? But don’t let that 
man*come between you and me, mother dear.” 

“I thought you liked Mr. Frost, Hugh?” 

“So I did. He was my father’s friend. I 
have known him all my life. But lately there 
has been something about him that revolts — no, 
that is too strong a word — there has been some- 
thing about him that seems to put me on my 
guard. I hate to have to be on my guard ! ” 

“It is a veiy good attitude to face the world 
with.” 

“Ah, mother, you know we might have some 
discussion on that soon. But, at all events, it is 
not the posture I like — or, indeed, that I am 
able — to assume toward my friends. With mis- 
trust affection vanishes.” 

Mrs. Lockwood winced, and turned her pale 
face from hfer son. 

“But, mother,” he proceeded, “I have an- 
other piece of news to add — a disagreeable piece 
of news; but you must try not to take it too 
much to heart.” 

Then he told her of the disappointing letter 
he had received from Herbert Snowe. This, 
however, did not seem to grieve her so much as 
he had expected. In truth, she could not help 
faintly hoping that it might give her anxieties a 
reprieve by putting off yet a while Hugh’s en- 
deavor to make a start for himself. But he did 
not leave her long in this delusion. 

“ I must try to borrow the money elsewhere,” 
said he. “ The opportunity of buying that con- 
nection is too good a one to be lost without an 
effort.” 

“Did he not say something — did not Mr. 
Frost make you an offer of a desirable position 
elsewhere ?” asked Mrs. Lockwood, hesitatingly. 

“Oh, I suppose he mentioned that to you also 
during his mysterious visit ? Well, mother, I am 
not mysterious, and I was about to tell you that 
he did make me an offer on the part of this new 
company in which he is interested. But — ” 

“ But you refused it !” 

Hugh explained to his mother that in order 
not to appear obstinate and ungracious, he had 
taken two days to consider of the proposition. 
But he added that his mind was already made 
up on the subject. 

“ The truth is,” he said, “ that I mistrust the 
Avhole business. There are rumors afloat about 
the company which would make a prudent man 
tliink tAvice before he had any thing to do Avith 
it.” 


122 


VERONICA. 


“But you would be a paid employe'. You 
would run no risk.” 

“I should risk losing my time and getting 
neither cash nor credit.” 

“Is it really thought so ill of, this undertak- 
ing ?” 

“ In our office it is spoken of as a very unsafe 
concern. My own opinion is this : if things had 
gone well in the English money market the Par- 
thenope Embellishment might have turned up 
trumps. But it is all ’hazard — unprincipled 
gambling on a great scale, and with other folks’ 
money! One or two more failures of great 
houses such as we have had lately would involve 
the company in ruin. But you need not look 
so anxious, dear little mother. Our unambi- 
tious little craft is out of such deep waters, and 
will keep out of them.” 

‘ ‘ Do you suppose, Hugh, ” asked Mrs. Lock- 
wood, in her usual deliberate calm tones, but 
with cheeks even paler than usual, “havd you 
any reason for supposing that Mr. Frost has ven- 
tured money in this company ?” 

His own money you mean? — for of course 
he has ventured other peoples’ if he puffs the 
thing to every one as he did to me I — well, I can 
not say. People are beginning to say that he is 
not so solid a man as was supposed. I hear — 
Heaven knows how these things get about — that 
he has a very extravagant wife, and that he has 
been rash in speculating. Mother, what is the 
matter?” 

Hugh suddenly checked his speech to ask this 
question ; for Mrs. Lockwood had dropped her 
head on her hands, and the tears were running 
down her face. 

“Mother! Darling mother, do speak to me! 
For God’s sake tell me what is the matter? Is 
it my fault? Have I done or said any thing to 
vex you ?” 

She shook her head silently; but the tears 
gathered and fell more quickly and copiously at 
every moment. 

“ Hugh,” she faltered out at last, “I tried to 
do right.” 

“Tried to do right! You have done right — 
always right. You are the best woman in the 
world.” 

“Don’t, Hugh! Don’t talk so! It goes to 
my heart to hear you when I know how your 
tone would change if I were to tell you — ” 

“To tell me what?” asked Hugh, almost 
breathless Avith surprise and apprehension. 

“Oh, Hugh, Hugh, you Avould not love me 
if I were to confess some great fault to you. 
You are like the rest of the men ; your love is 
so mingled with pride!” * 

“Some great fault!” echoed Hugh. 

“ There! There it is, the stern look on your 
face like your father!” 

The poor Avoman boAved her face yet lower, 
and hid it in her hands, Avhile her delicate frame 
shook Avith sobs. For a fsAv minutes, Avhich 
seemed an interminable time to her, Hugh stood 
silent, and looking, as she had said, very stern. 
He Avas struggling Avith himself, and undergoing 
a painful ordeal Avhich Avas not expressed in the 
set lines of his strong young face. At length 
he AA'ent to his mother, knelt beside her chair, ] 
and took her hand. I 

“Mother,” he said, “nothing can blot out all 
the years of love and care and tenderness you 


haA’^e gh'en to me. I can not believ'e that you 
have been guilty of any great ffiult. Your sens- 
itiA^e conscience exaggerates its importance no 
doubt. But” — here he made a little pause, and 
Avent on AAUth an effort — “ but whatever it may 
be, if you Avill confide in me, I shall never cease 
to love you. You are my OAvn dear mother! 
Nothing can alter that.” 

“ Oh, my boy !” she cried, and threAV her arms 
round his neck as he knelt beside her. 

Then in a moment the Aveary secret of years 
came out. She told him all the truth, from the 
miserable story of her youth to the time of her 
marriage, and the subsequent persecution from 
Avhich Mr. Frost had relieved her, and the price 
she had to pay for that relief. As she spoke, 
holding her son in her arms and resting her 
head on his shoulder, she AA'ondered at herself 
for haA'ing endured the torments of bearing her 
solitary burden all these years, and at the appre- 
hension she had felt at the thought of the con- 
fession Avhich noAv seemed so easy, sAveet, and 
natural. 

Hugh heard her Avithout peaking, only noAV 
and then pressing the hand he held in his to give 
her courage Avhen she faltered. 

“Oh, mother, Iioav you haA-e suffered in your 
life!” That AV'as his first thought Avhen she 
ceased to speak. His next thought he Avas fain 
to utter, although it sounded like a reproach. 

“ If you had but trusted my father ! He loved 
you so truly.” 

“Ah, Hugh, if I had, but it Avas so terrible to 
me to risk losing his love. And he often said — 
as you have been used to say after him — that he 
could never reinstate in his heart any one Avho 
had once been guilty of deliberate "deception. 
You can not knoAv, you strong upright natures, 
hoAV the Aveak are bent and Avarped. You can 
not — or so I feared — make alloAA’ance for tempt- 
ation, or give credit for all the hard struggle 
and combat that ends sometimes in defeat at last.” 

Hugh could not quite easily get OA^er the reve- 
lation his mother had made. He had struggled 
Avith himself to be gentle Avith her ; he AA’ould not 
add to her pain by look or gesture, if he could 
help it. But he kneAV that all Avas not as it had 
been betAveen them. He knew that he could 
never again feel the absolute proud trust in his 
mother Avhich had been a joy to him for so many 
years. Tenderness, gratitude, and pity remained". 
But the past AAas past, and irrcA'ocable. The 
pain of this knoAvledge acted as a spi r to his re- 
sentment against Mr. Frost. 

“You have the paper acknoAvdedging this man’s 
debt to my father ?” said Hugh. “ It Avill not be 
difficult to make him disgorge. He to patronize 
me, and help me, and offer me this and that, Avhen 
an act of common honesty Avould have put me in 
a position to help myself years ago !” 

“Hugh, the dreadful idea that you hinted at 
just noAv has been in my mind for some time 
past, although I dared not dAvell on it. I mean 
the fear that he may not be able to make imme- 
diate restitution of the money due to you.” 

“Restitution or exposure: I shall give him 
the choice, though I feel that even so I am in 
some degree compounding Avith knavery.” 

I ]\Irs. LockAA'ood clasped and unclasped her 
j hands nervously. 

“He always found some excuse for putting 
me off all these years,” she said. 


VERONICA. 


]23 


“He shall not put me off, I promise him.” 

“Oh, my boy, if through my cowardice you 
should lose all that your poor father worked so 
hard to bequeath to you !” 

“We will hope better, mother deal*. This 
man must have enough to pay me what he owes. 
It is a great deal to us, but not much to a rich 
man. He has been in a fine position for years, 
and the name of the firm stands high.” 

“And about — about the will, and Maud’s in- 
heritance?” stammered Mrs. Lockwood. 

The calm security of her manner had given 
place to a timid hesitation in addressing Hugh 
that was almost pathetic. 

“ Do not let us speak of that, dear mother,” 
said Hugh, “or my choler will rise beyond my 
power to control it. That man is a consummate 
scoundrel. He was — I am sure of it now, I sus- 
pected it then — trying to sound me as to the prob- 
ability of my being induced to bear false wit- 
ness.” 

“Oh, Hugh!” 

“He thought it might be highly convenient 
for him, and might ease his pocket and his cares 
(not his conscience ; that he is not troubled with) 
if I — It won’t bear thinking of.” 

“ May you not be mistaken ? And may there 
not be some excuse — ?” 

“Excuse!” echoed Hugh. 

His mother shrank back silently at the fierce 
tone of his voice. He walked to the door, and 
had almost passed out of the room, when she 
called him, but in so low and hesitating a tone 
that he stood uncertain whether she had spoken 
or not. 

“Did you call me, mother?” he said. 

“You never left me before without a word 
or a kiss, Hugh, since you were a toddling 
child.” 

He came back at once, and took her in his 
arms, and kissed her forehead, fondly. But aft- 
er he was gone, she sat and cried bitterly. A 
strange kind of repentance grew up in her mind 
— a repentance not so much for the evil done as 
for the tardy confession of it. Yet it had seemed, 
so long as the confession was yet unspoken, and 
even while she was speaking it, as if it must take 
a load from her heart. 

“ If I had held my tongue,” she thought, “ my 
son would have loved me and trusted me still. 
Now I am afraid to see him again, lest I should 
find some change in him, my boy whom I love 
better than my life ! What signified the money ? 
I might have let it go. He knew nothing of it, 
and he would not have grieved for it. What 
])hantom of duty was it that haunted and harried 
me into doing this thing?” 

She forgot, in the present pain of her mortified 
love and pride, all the miserable hours that se- 
crecy had cost her. Her soul was tossed to and 
fro % many revulsions of feeling before her med- 
itations were ended. The untoward teachings 
of her youth were bearing bitter fruit. She did 
not lack courage. She could endure, and had 
endured much, with fortitude and energy. But 
the greatness of Renunciation was not hers. She 
had balanced her sufferings against her faults all 
her life long. She had been prone to demand 
strict justice for herself, and to tliink that she 
meted it out rigidly to others. There had been 
a secret sustaining consolation amidst the heart- 
breaking troubles of her younger days, in the 


conviction that they were undeserved. Bride 
has always a balm for the sting of injustice. But 
for the stroke of merited calamity humility alone 
brings healing. 

'Zillah thought that she had paid her price of 
suffering. She had faced the pain of confessing 
to her son that she had sinned. And yet the 
peace which that pain was meant to purchase 
did not descend upon her heart. She had not 
learned even yet that no human sacrifice can 
bribe the past to hide its face and be silent. 
We must learn to look upon the irrevocable 
w'ithout rancor : thus, and thus only, does its 
stern sphinx-face reveal to us a sweetness and a 
wisdom of its own. 

» 

CHAPTER IX. 

CONFIDENCE. 

It was past six o’clock on that same spring 
evening when Veronica’s note was delivered at 
Gower Street. Hugh had just quitted his mo- 
ther, after the interview recorded in the preced- 
ing chapter, and was crossing the little entrance 
hall when the messenger arrived. 

“Are you Mr. Hugh Lockwood, Sir?” asked 
the man. “ I was told to give the letter into his 
own hands.” 

Hugh assured the messenger that he was right; 
and began to read the note as he stood there, with 
some anxiety. When he had glanced quickly 
through the note he tunied to the messenger. 

“ Are you to wait for an answer?” he said. 

“No, Sir; I had no instructions about that.” 

“Very good. I will send or bring the reply. 
Tell Lady Gale that her note has been safely re- 
ceived. ” 

When the man was gone Hugh ran up to his 
own room to read the letter again, and to con- 
sider its contents. What should he do ? That 
he must tell Maud of it was clear to him. He 
did not think he should be justified in withhold- 
ing it from her. But how should he advise her 
to act ? He cogitated for some tinte without 
coming to any conclusion ; and at last went in 
search of her, determined to let himself be great- 
ly guided by her manner of receiving that which 
he had to impart. 

He found Maud in the little drawing-room 
that had been so long occupied by Lady Tal- 
lis. She was selecting and packing some music 
to take away with her ; for she was to accom- 
pany her guardian to Shipley in two days. Mrs. 
Sheardown had invited her to stay at Lowater 
House for a while. But Maud bad declared that 
she could not leave IMr. Levincourt for the first 
week or so of his return home. Afterward she 
had promised to divide her time as nearly as 
might be between Lowater and the vicarage. 

“What are you doing there, my own? You 
look as pale as a spirit in the twilight,” said 
Hugh, entering the room. 

“I am doing what spirits have no occasion 
for — packing up,” she answered. “Luggage 
is, however, a condition of civilized mortality, 
against which it is vain to rebel.” 

“It is a condition of mortality which you of 
the gentler sex accept with great fortitude, I 
have always heai-d. Perhaps there may be 
something of the martyr-spirit in the persever- 


124 


VERONICA. 


ance with which one sees w'omen drag about 
piles of portmanteaus and bandboxes ! ” 

He answered lightly and cheerfully, as she had 
spoken. But his heart sank at the prospect of 
so speedily parting with her. 

“See, dear Hugh,” said Maud, pointing to a 
packet of unbound music she had put aside, 
“these are to be left in your charge. The 
rest — Beethoven’s sonatas, Haydn’s, Hummel’s, 
and a few of the songs I shall take with me. I 
have packed up the sonatas of Kozeluch that 
I used to play with Mr. Blew — poor Mr. 
Blew!” 

She smiled, but a tear was in her eye, and her 
voice shook a little. Bresently she went on. ‘ ‘ I 
have chosen all the old things that Uncle Charles 
is fond of. He said the other day that he never 
had any music now. Music was always one of 
his great pleasures. ” 

‘ ‘ I have not heard you play or sing for some 
time, Maud.” 

“Not since — not since dear Aunt Hilda died. 
I have not cared to make music for my own sake. 
But I shall be thankful if I can cheerUncle Charles 
by it.” 

Hugh drew near her, and looked down proud- 
ly on the golden-haired head bending over the 
music. “ And must I lose you, my own love?” 
he said, sadly. 

‘ ‘ Lose me, Hugh ! No ; that you must not. 
Don’t be too sorry, you poor boy. Remember 
how I shall be loving you all the time — yes, all 
the time, every hour that we are parted.” 

She put up her hands on his shoulders, and 
laid her shining head against his breast with 
fond simplicity. 

“ Ah, my own, best darling! Ahvays unself- 
ish, always encouraging, always brave. What 
troubles can hurt me that leave me your love? 
]My heart has no room for any thing but grati- 
tude when I think of you, Maud.” 

“Are there troubles, Hugh?” she asked, 
quickly, holding him away from her, and look- 
ing up into his face. “ If you really think me 
brave, you will let me know the troubles. It is 
my right, you know.” 

“There are no troubles — no real troubles. 
But I will tell you every thing, and take counsel 
of my wise little wife. First, I must tell you 
that I carried out our plan this day. Don’t start, 
darling. I went to Mr. Lovegrove’s office, where 
I found Mr. Simpson, the lawyer employed by — 
by the other side, and Lane, the agent. I told 
them what I had to say, as briefly as possible, 
just as you bade me.” 

“ Oh, I am so grateful to you, Hugh. And 
the result? Tell me in a word.” 

“ I have no doubt Veronica’s claim will be es- 
tablished. Indeed, I believe that it may be said 
to be so already.” 

“Thank God!” 

“I will give you the details of my inteiwiew 
later, if you care to hear them. But now I 
have something else to say to you. Sit down by 
me here on the couch. I have just had a note — 
You tremble ! Your little hands are cold ! Maud, 
my darling, there is nothing to fear !” 

“No, dear Hugh. I do not fear. I fear no- 
thing as long as you hold my hand in vours. 
But I— I—” 

“You have been agitated and excited too 
much lately. I know it, dearest. I hate to dis- 


tress you. But I am sure it would not be right 
to conceal this thing from you.” 

“Thank you, Hugh.” 

“ I got this note not half an hour ago. Can 
you see to read it by this light ?” She took the 
small, perfumed note to the window, and read it 
through eagerly. While she was reading Hugh 
kept silence, and watched her with tender anx- 
iety. In a minute she turned her face toward 
him and held out her hand. 

“ When may I go ? You will take me, Hugh ? 
Let us lose no time. ” 

“ You wish to go, then ?” 

“Wish to go! Oh yes, yes, Hugh. Dear 
Hugh, you will not oppose it?” 

“I will not oppose it, Maud, if you tell me, 
after a little reflection, that you seriously wish 
to go.” 

“I think I ought to see her.” 

“ She does not deserve it of yon.” 

“Dear Hugh, she has done wrong. She de- 
ceived her father, and was cruelly deceived in 
her turn. I know there is nothing so abomina- 
ble to you as insincerity. ” 

Hugh thought of his own many speeches to 
that effect, and then of his mother’s recent rev- 
elation ; and so thinking, he winced a little and 
turned away his head. 

“You are accustomed to expect moral strength 
and rectitude, from having the example of your 
mother always before your eyes. But ought we 
to set our faces against the weak who wish to 
return to the right ?” 

“I know not what proof of such a wish has 
been given by — Lady Gale.” 

“Dearest Hugh, if she Avere all heartless and 
selflsh, she would not long to see me in the hour 
of her triumph.” 

“ She says no w'ord of her father.” 

IMaud’s face fell a little, and she bent her head 
thoughtfully. 

“Does that shoAV much heart?” continued 
Hugh. 

“ Berhaps — I think — I do believe that she is 
more afraid of him than she is of me. And that 
Avould not be unnatural, Hugh. .Listen, dear. I 
do not defend, nor even excuse, Veronica. But 
if, now — having seen to what misery, for herself 
and others, ambition, and vanity, and worldliness 
have led — she is wavering at a turning-point in 
her life, where a kind hand, a loving word, may 
have power to strengthen her in better things, 
ought I not to give them to her if I can ?” 

“If,” said Hugh, slowly, “you can do so 
without repugnance, without doing violence to 
your ovTi feelings, perhaps — ” 

“ I can ! I can, indeed, Hugh ! Ah, you, who 
have been blessed with a good and wise mother, 
can not guess hoAV much of what is faulty in Ve- 
ronica, is due to early indulgence. Boor Aunt 
Stella was kind ; but she could neither guide nor 
rule such a nature as Veronica’s. And then, 
Hugh, don’t gh'e me credit for more than I de- 
serve — I do long to see her. She Avas my sister 
for so many years. And I loved her — I have 
alAA'ays loved her. Let me go !” 

They debated Avhen and hoAv this was to be. 

“ I hate the idea of your going to see her un- 
known to Mr. Levincourt,” said Hugh. “I be- 
lieve he Avill be justly hurt and angered when he 
hears of it. If you have any influence AAUth her, 
you must try to induce her to make some ad- 


VERONICA. 


125 


vances to her father. It is her barest duty. 
And — listen, my dearest as lie spoke he drew 
her fondly to his side as though to encourage 
her against the gravity of his Avords, and the 
serious resolution in his face. “Listen to me, 
Maud. You must make this lady understand 
that your path in life and hers will henceforward 
be widely different. It must be so. Were we to 
plan the contrary, circumstances would still be 
too strong for us. She Avill be rich. We, my 
Maudie, shall be only just not very poor. She 
will live in gay cities ; we in an obscure provin- 
cial nook. The social atmosphere that will in 
all probability surround Lady Gale, would not 
suit my lily. And our climate Avould be too 
bleak for her. ” 

“I will do what you tell me, Hugh. When 
may I go ? To-night ?” 

“ She says in her note that she Avill be at home 
all to-morrow. ” 

“ Yes ; but she also says ‘ this evening.’ And, 
besides, to-morrow will be my last day Avith 
you 

“ Thanks, darling. Well, Maud, if you are 
prepared — if you are strong enough — Ave Avill go 
to-night.” 

Hugh Avent doAvn stairs, and informed his mo- 
ther that he and Maud Avere going out for a while, 
but Avould return to supper. 

It AA"as not unusual for them to take an evening 
AA’alk together, after the business of the day Avas 
over for Hugh. 

“Are you going to the park, Hugh?” asked 
Mrs. LockAA'ood.. 

“No, mother.” 

At another time she would haA^e questioned 
him further. But noAV there Avas a sore feeling 
at her heart which made her refrain. Was he 
groAving less kind, less confiding already ? Were 
these the first-fruits of her miserable weakness in 
confessing Avhat she might still have hidden? She 
Avas too proud, or too prudent — perhaps at the bot- 
tom of her heart too just — to shoAV any temper or 
suspicion. She merely bade him see that Maud 
Avas Avell Avrapped up, as the evenings Avere still 
chilly. 

And then, Avhen the street door had closed 
upon them, she sat and Avatched their progress 
doAvn the long dreary street from behind the 
concealment of the Avire blind in her little par- 
lor, Avith a yearning sense of unhappiness. 

Arrived at the bottom of the street, Hugh 
called a cab. “You must driA’e to the place, 
my pet,” he said, putting Maud into the vehi- 
cle. “It is a long Avay; and you must not be 
tired or harassed Avhen you reach the hotel. ” 

“Oh, AALere is it, Hugh? Hoav odd that I 
neA’er thought of asking ! But I put my hand 
into yours and come Avith you, much as a little 
child folloAvs its nurse. Sometimes I feel — you 
Avon’t laugh, Hugh ?” 

“I shall not laugh, Maudie. I am in no 
laughing mood. I may smile, perhaps. But 
smiles and tears are sometimes near akin, you 
knoAV.” 

“Well, then, I feel very often when I am Avith 
you, as I have never felt Avith any one except my 
mother. I can remember the perfect security, the 
sense of repose and trust I had in her presence. 
I Avas so sure of her love. It came doAvn like 
the deAV from heaven. I needed to make no 
effort, to say no Avord. I Avas a tiny child Avheu 


I lost her, but I have neA'er forgotten that feel- 
ing. And since, since I have loved you, Hugh, 
it seems to me as though it had come back to 
me in all its peace and SAveetness.” 

“My OAvn treasure!” 

They sat silent Avith their hands locked in each 
other’s until they had nearly reached the place 
they AA'ere bound fo]'. Then Hugh said: “We 
are nearly at our destination, Maud. 1 shall 
leaA'e you after I have seen you safely in the 
hotel. It is noAv half past seven. At nine 
o’clock I Avill come back for you. You Avill be 
ready ?” 

“Yes, Hugh.” 

“ God bless you, my dearest. I shall be glad 
when this interview is over. My precious Avhite 
lily, these sudden gusts and storms shake you too 
much !” 

“Oh,” she ansAvered, smiling into his face, 
though Avith a trembling lip, “there are lilies 
of a tougher fibre than you think for! And 
they are elastic, the poor slight things. It is 
the strong stiff* stubborn tree that gets broken.” 

“Am I stiff and stubborn, Maudie?” 

“No; you are strong and good, and I am so 
gi’ateful to you ! ” 

He inquired in the hall of the hotel for Lady- 
Gale, and found that directions had been giA^en 
to admit Maud whenever she might present her- 
self. 

“Miss Desmond?” said the porter. “Lady 
Gale begs you Avill go up stairs. This AA'ay, if you 
please.” 

The man directed a AA’aiter to conduct Miss 
Desmond to Lady Gale’s apartment. Hugh 
gave her a hurried pressure of the hand, Avhis- 
pered, “At nine, Maud,” and stood Avatching 
her until her slight figure had disappeared, pass- 
ing lightly and noiselessly up the thickly-carpet- 
ed stairs. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE MEETING. 

When Maud, folloAA-ing her conductor, reached 
the door of the sitting-room, she stopped the serA’- 
ant by a quick gesture from opening it and an- 
nouncing her. 

“ I am expected,” she said, almost in a AAdiis- 
per. “ I Avill go in by myself.” 

She entered a large, dimly-lighted room. The 
furniture, alAA'ays sombre, had once been also 
rich, but Avas noAV merely dingy. A fire burned 
in a loAv, Avide grate at one end of it. On the 
tail, old-fashioned mantle-piece stood a couple of 
branch candlesticks, holding lighted AA^ax tapers. 
From their position, these illumined only the 
upper part of the room ; the rest AA'as more Dr 
less in deep shadoAv. There AA'as a large arm- 
chair draAvn to one side of the fire-place. Its 
back Avas tOAvard the principal door of the room. 
But one entering from the staircase could see 
the long draperies of the occupant of the chair, 
against Avhich a Avhite drooping hand Avas strong- 
ly relieved. 

Maud stood still for a second. Not for lon- 
ger than a second ; for, almost immediately, she 
closed the door behind her ; and the noise, though 
slight, attracted the attention of the solitary per- 
son Avho sat there. Maud had but an instant in 
Avhich to observe her melancholy drooping atti- 


126 


VERONICA. 


tude, when the lady turned her head, peering 
into the dimness of the distant part of the room, 
and suddenly rose and leaned with both hands 
on the back of her chair. 

“ Veronica!” 

Veronica drew in her breath with a great gasp, 
almost like a sob, and held out her arms. In 
an instant Maud held her in a close embrace, 
kissing her and ciying over her with a gush of 
unrestrained tears. 

But Veronica stood as silent as a statue, strain- 
ing the other tightly in her arms, tearless, and 
with ice-cold hands and lips, until all at once 
she pressed Maud down into the chair, and sank 
on to the floor at her feet in her old familiar 
posture, burying her face on Maud’s knees. 

Presently Maud spoke. ‘ ‘ Dear V eronica, will 
you not get up and sit beside me ? I want to 
see you. ” 

Veronica raised her head. 

“And I want to see you, Maudie. It all 
seems unreal. I can’t believe that I am hearing 
your voice.” 

She slowly rose up from the floor, and stood 
bending a little over Maud, and holding her 
hands. Both girls were in deep mourning. 
Maud wore a plain merino gown, trimmed with 
a little crape. Veronica’s rich rustling silk robe 
swept the ground, and was elaborately adorned 
with all the art of a Parisian dress-maker. Jet 
gleamed mysteriously here and there upon it, 
and its deep crape trimming was of a very dif- 
ferent texture and quality from that which Maud 
wore. 

Veronica fixed her eyes on Maud’s face. The 
latter was ratlier pale, and her eyes bore traces 
of the tears they had just shed. But she was 
still the same Maud whom Veronica had knoAvn 
and loved. Her bright hair shone like a golden- 
tinged cloud at sunset above her black garments. 
There was the broad clear brow, the mobile 
mouth, the earnest blue eyes, unchanged in the 
character of their expression. 

On her side, what did Maud see? 

A face undeniably, strikingly beautiful ; but 
with its chief beauties all exaggerated, as it 
were, in some undefinable w’ay. Veronica’s fig- 
ure was a little fuller than it had been. And 
the tendency to heaviness about her cheeks and 
jaw had slightly developed itself. Her thick 
eyelashes were intensely — it seemed almost un- 
naturally — black. The semicircle of her jetty 
brows was defined with the hard precision of a 
geometrical line. Her glossy hair was pulled 
down in waves as accurate as those that edge a 
scollop-shell, so as to leave visible scarce a fin- 
ger’s breadth of forehead— an arrangement which 
at once lowered, and made ignobly sensual, the 
whole type and character of her face. Her 
cheeks and lips were tinged with a Auvid red. 
Her once supple waist was compressed into a 
painfully small girdle. In a word. Artifice had 
laid its debasing hand on her every natural grace 
and beauty. 

“A thing of beauty” painted, pinched, padded, 
yielded up to the low devices of coquetry, becomes 
not a “joy,” but a toy, forever. And then, with 
the contemptible and grotesque, what tragedy is 
mingled, when w^e see a living human soul pris- 
oned behind the doll’s mask, and fluttering its 
maimed pinions against the base enameled false- 
hood ! Such a soul looked out of V eronica’s lus- 


trous eyes into Maud’s as they remained gazing 
at each other, hand in hand. 

“ I would ask you to forgive me, Maud,” said 
Veronica, “but that I think you are happy.” 

“ To forgiA’e you, Veronica?” 

“To forgive my depriving you of your for- 
tune,” said Veronica, quickly. “ That is what I 
mean. But you never coveted wealth.” 

Veronica had, unconsciously to herself, ac- 
quired the habit of assuming, with complacent 
security, that whosoever refrained from grasping 
at an object, or repining at its loss, must be in- 
different to it, and exempt from any combat with 
desire : like those savages w^ho, modern travelers 
tell us, are incapable of conceiving any check to 
tyranny save the limit of powder to tyrannize. 

“Don’t speak of that dreadful money!” cried 
Maud, impulsively. “I hate to think of it.” 

Veronica dropped IMaud’s hands, drew' back, 
and seated herself on a low prie-dieu. There 
was an air of self-assertion in her nonchalant at- 
titude, and she toyed carelessly wdth a magnifi- 
cent diamond ring that glittered on her finger. 

“Dear Veronica,” said Maud, clasping her 
hands together as they lay on her lap, “it does 
indeed seem, as you sa\', like a dream. All that 
weary, weaiy time. Oh, my poor Veronica, if 
you could know' how we missed you and mourn- 
ed for you!” 

;Maud did not realize as yet how far apart they 
tw'o w’ere. Veronica’s life during her absence 
from England was unknowm to Maud. She im- 
agined it confusedly to herself, as a time of dis- 
appointment, remorse, and sorrow'. The tw'O 
girls had alw'ays been very different even in child- 
hood. But the courses of their lives had been 
parallel, so to speak ; and as time brought to 
each character its natural development, they did 
not seem for a while to grow more widely sun- 
dered. But from the day of Veronica’s flight — 
and doubtless for many a day previous, only that 
the divergence up to that point was too slight and 
subtle to be observed — the two lives had branch- 
ed apart, and tended ever further from each oth- 
er to the end. Veronica w'as more sensible of 
this than Maud. She felt instinctively that the 
downw'ard-tending path she had been pursuing 
W'as not clearly conceivable to Maud. Nor, in 
truth, had the latter any idea of the degrading 
flatteries, the base suspicions, the humiliating 
hypocrisies, the petty ambitions, the paltry pleas- 
ures, and corroding cares, ennobled by no spark 
of unselfish love, which had made up the exist- 
ence of the vicar’s daughter. 

The one had been journeying through a home- 
like country, w'hich never in its dreariest parts 
quite lost the wide prospect of the sky, or the 
breath of pure air; although the former might 
drop chill rain, and the latter might blow' rough- 
ly at times. The other had plunged into a trop- 
ical jungle; beautiful on its borders with gay 
birds and flowers, but within dark, stifling, and 
deadly. 

Veronica was conscious of a shade of disap- 
pointment on once more beholding Maud. She 
W'as disappointed in herself. She had been 
moved and startled by the first sight of IMaud ; 
but no tears had welled up from her heart into 
her eyes. No deep emotion had been stirred. 
She felt, with a sort of unacknowledged dread, 
that she had grown harder than of old. She had 
yearned for the luxury of genuine feeling, and 


VERONICA. 


127 


recalled the sweetness of impulsive affectionate 
moments when she had forgotten, by Maud’s 
side, to be vain and selfish. ^ But now the springs 
of pure tenderness seemed to be dry. She was 
uneasy until she could assert her grandeur, her 
success, her triumph. She wished to love Maud, 
and to be loved by her ; but she also wished that 
IMaud should be brought to see and to acknowl- 
edge how brilliant was her fortune, how great a 
lady the Princess de’ Barletti would be, and how 
far above pity dr contempt she had raised herself. 

She had written perhaps too humbly to Hugh 
Lockwood, dashing off the note without stopping 
to weigh her words. If so, she must let them 
all see that she was no penitent to be pardoned 
and wept over, but a woman who had gained 
what she aimed at, and who understood its value. 

She turned the flashing diamond round and 
round on her finger, as she answered slowly, 
“You mourned for me? Yet you did not an- 
swer my letter! Your mourning cost you little 
trouble. ” 

“ Not answer your letter ! Indeed, Veronica, 
I did. And on my own responsibility, and at 
the risk of offending — at some risk. Did you 
never get my answer ?” 

The blood rushed into Veronica’s face as she 
listened, and a suspicion of the truth crossed her 
mind : namely, that Maud’s letter had been sup- 
pressed by Sir John Gale. But she merely said, 
“ Never. I never heard from any one at home, 
although I wrote several times. If you did 
■write,” she paused and changed her phrase after 
a quick glance at Maud’s face ; “ since you did 
write, your letter must have gone astray in some 
way.” 

“Oh, Veronica, how cruel you must have 
thought me ! And yet — you could not, surely, 
think me so ? You did not doubt my affection 
for you ?” 

“Oh, I alternately doubted and believed all 
sorts of things. Well ; it is over now.” 

“ Dear Veronica, I have been told — Hugh 
told me of his interview with those gentlemen 
to-day. And we are both unfeignedly relieved 
and thankful to know that — that — that your 
claim will be established.” 

“Although you lose by it! There was no 
doubt of the illegality of the will. Any court 
■would have given the case in my favor. But I 
am not the less sensible,” added Veronica, after 
an instant’s hesitation, “of your generous for- 
bearance. To have gone to law would have been 
very terrible — for every one.” 

“It should never have been done with my 
consent. Veronica, you have not asked — you 
have said nothing about — Uncle Charles. Did 
you fear to ask ? He is well, thank God. ” 

“ I had heard that my hither was alive and 
well from Mr. Frost. I hope he is also a little 
less obdurate against his only child than he was.” 

Maud was shocked by the hardness of the tone 
in which this was said. Veronica’s manner alto- 
gether w'as unexpectedly chilling after the warmth 
of her first embrace, and the tenor of the note 
she had written. 

“ He has been very unhappy, Veronica.” 

“ I regret it : although my unhappiness seems 
to have been indifferent to him.” 

“As you begged in your note that no word 
should be said of it to any one, we did not even 
tell Uncle Charles that — ” 


“ Tell him ? Is he here, in London ?” 

“Yes, dear. Did you not know it? Ah, I 
am glad you did not know it ! That explains. 
If you had known he was here, you would have 
asked to see him, would you not ?” 

Maud’s eyes were full of tears as she spoke, 
and she took Veronica’s hand in both hers ca- 
ressingly. 

“Papa is here! You have been with him 
quite lately — to-day?” 

“Yes. I left him at Gower Street. You will 
not be angry, dear, when I tell you that, as you 
had made no sign, ■w^e had resolved — Hugh and 
I — to say nothii\g to your father about all the 
trouble, now past and over, until he should be at 
home again in Shipley. I am going back with 
him. And then, when we w’ere quietly together 
in the old house, I should have told him.” 

“Then papa does not know that I — that Sir 
John Gale is dead?” 

“No; he has lived quite secluded from the 
chance of hearing it. ” 

“What brought him to town?” 

. Maud cast her eyes down, and her voice sank 
as she answered: “He came for^unt Hilda’s 
funeral.” 

There was a painful silence. Even Veronica’s 
egotism was dumb before all the considerations 
connected wdth those words. Presently Maud 
said, “ But now you will try to see your father 
before we go away, will you not, dear Veronica ?” 

Veronica was agitated. She rose from her 
chair, and’walked quickly about the room. Then 
she returned to Maud’s side, and, bending over 
her, kissed her forehead. 

“ Maudie, Maudie, do you think he has any 
love left in his heart for me ?” 

“Yes, dear Veronica ; I am sure he loves you. 
Do not let that doubt stand between you.” 

“No; but I had intended something differ- 
ent. I meant, of course, to see papa. I meant 
to try to see him later, after I — . I believe it 
will be best that I should not see him yet,” 

“Will that be quite right, Veronica?” 

“ I must act. according to my own judgment, 
and the judgment of those W'ho have a right to 
advise me.” 

Maud looked at her in sorrowful surprise. 
Veronica’s tone had changed again to one of 
haughty coldness. And who were they who had 
“a right to advise” her? 

“I think,” said Maud, gently, “that any one 
would advise you to relieve your father’s mind 
as soon as possible. Think what he has suf- 
fered !” 

“ I will write to papa when he gets to Ship- 
ley,” returned Veronica, after a pause. “And 
I believe that will be the best on the sole ground 
of consideration for him. I do, indeed, Maudie. 
But now tell me about yourself.” 

‘ ‘ There is little to tell. My great good news 
you know already.” 

“Great good news? No. — Oh, stay. You 
mean your engagement ?” 

“ What else should I mean ?” answered Maud, 
while a bright blush came into her pale cheek, 
and her eyes shone, as she looked at Veronica, 
with bashful candor. 

“Is it really such good news? He is a man 
of no family, and — ” 

“Veronica! Do you speak seriously? He 
comes of honest people, I am glad to say. But 


128 


VERONICA. 


if he did not, he is he. And that is enough for 
me.” 

“You never cared about your own ancestry. 
But then, Mr. Lockwood is quite poor.” 

“Not poorer than I am,” said Maud. The 
next instant she feared that the words might be 
taken as a complaint or a reproach to Veronica, 
and she added, quickly, “ I never expected rich- 
es. I always knew that I should be poor. 1 had 
no right to look for wealth, and, as you said your- 
self, I do not covet it. ” 

“No; not wealth, perhaps. But look here, 
Maudie; I shall come and put myself at your 
feet as I used to do. I can ;alk to you bet- 
ter so. It will seem like old times, w'on’t 
it?” 

But the gulf that divided the old times from 
the new was forcibly brought to Maud’s mind 
by the fact that Lady Gale cautiously fastened 
the door that led into her bedroom, where her 
maid w’as sitting, lest the woman should enter 
tlie drawing-room and surprise her mistress in 
that undignified posture. Further, Maud ob- 
served that Veronica, by sitting on a low stool 
at her feet, was not compelled to meet her eyes, 
as she had done when they had conversed to- 
gether before. 

Veronica’s rich draperies flow’ed over the dingy 
carpet as she placed herself on the foot-stool, with 
her head resting against Maud’s knees. Maud 
timidly touched the glossy coils of hair that lay 
on her lap. And her pale, pure face shone above 
them like a wiiite star at twilight. 

“Now% Maudie,” began Veronica, in a low 
voice, that had something constrained in its 
sound, “I don’t want to speak of the past year. 
You got my letter — thanks to little Flew, poor 
little fellow! — although I did not get your an- 
swer. You know the contents of that letter. 
They expressed my genuine feeling at the time. 
Beyond having left Shipley without papa’s knowd- 
edge, I consider that I have nothing to reproach 
myself with.” 

Maud gave a little sigh, but said nothing. 

The sigh or the silence, or both, annoyed Ve- 
ronica; for she proceeded, with some irritation 
of manner: “And I do not intend to be re- 
proached by others. Evil and trouble came 
truly, but they w^ere none of my making. I 
was the victim and the sufferer. I was entitled 
to sympathy, if ever woman was. But through- 
out I kept one object in view, and I have achieved 
it. I shall be replaced in my prefer position in 
the world — in a position far loftier, indeed, than 
any one could have prophesied for me.” 

All this was inexpressibly painful to Maud. 
Instead of the trembling gratitude for deliver- 
ance from obloquy; instead of the ingenuous 
confession of her owm faults, and the acknowl- 
edgment of undeserved good fortune, which she 
had expected to find in Veronica, there was a 
hard and hostile tone of mind that must be for- 
ever, and by the nature of it, barren of good 
things. Maud was very young; she had her 
share of the rashness in judgment that belongs 
to youth. But, besides that, she had a quality 
by "no means so commonly found in the young — 
a single-minded candor and simplicity of soul, 
which led her to accept words at their standard 
dictionaiy value. She made allowance for no 
depreciation of currency, but credited the bank 
whence such notes were issued with an amount 


of metal exactly equivalent to that expressed by 
the symbol. 

That Veronica, in speaking as she did, was 
fighting against conscience, and striving to drown 
the voice of self-reproach, never occurred to Maud 
Desmond. She was grieved and disappointed. 
She dared not trust herself to speak ; and it was 
the strength of her constant, clinging affection 
that made Veronica’s speech so painful. 

Veronica continued: “You must not think 
that I mean to be unmindful of you, Maud, in 
my prosperity. I know that in a measure I may 
be said to have deprived you of a fortune, al- 
though, had it not been to injure and cut me to 
the quick, that fortune would never have been 
bequeathed to you.” 

“Veronica! I implore you not to speak of 
that odious money! I had no claim to it in jus- 
tice, no desire for it. For Heaven’s sake let us 
be silent on that score!” 

“No,” returned Veronica, raising herself a 
little on her elbow as she spoke, and looking up 
at the other girl, with cheeks that revealed a 
deeper flush beneath the false color that tinged 
them: “No, Maud, I can not consent to be si- 
lent. I have made up my mind that you shall 
have a handsome dowry. It should have been 
a really splendid one if all the money had come 
to me. As it is, I dare say Mr. Lockwood will 
be—” 

Maud put her trembling hand on Veronica’s 
lips. ‘ ‘ Oh, pray, pray,” she said, ‘ ‘ do not speak 
of it ! Dear Veronica, it is impossible ! It can 
never be !” 

Veronica removed her arm from Maud’s knee, 
a dark frown knitted her brows for an instant, 
but almost immediately she said, lightly, as she 
rose from the floor : “ Oh, Maudie, Maudie, what 
a tragedy face ! Don’t be childish, Maudie. I 
say it must be. I shall not speak to you on the 
subject. Mr. Lockwood will doubtless be more 
reasonable. ” 

“ Do not dream of it ! You do not know 
him.” 

“ I am not in love with him,” retorted Veron- 
ica, smiling disdainfulh’’ ; “but that is quite an- 
other thing !” 

However, she suddenly resolved to say no 
more on the subject to Maud. She had another 
scheme in her head. She could not quite forget 
Hugh’s old admiration for herself, and she meant 
to seek an interview with him. She would do 
no wrong to Maud, even if Hugh were to put 
aside for a few moments the perfectness of his 
allegiance. But — she would like to assert her 
personal influence. She wished him to bend his 
stiff-necked pride before the power of her beauty 
and the charm of her manner. And in so wish- 
ing, she declared to herself that her main object 
was to be generous to Maud, and to give her a 
marriage portion. 

“ Maudie, let my maid take your hat and 
cloak. This room is wami. We must have 
some tea together,” she said, going toward the 
door of her bedchamber as she spoke. 

“No, Veronica, I can not stay. And pray 
don’t call any one. I could take otf my hat and 
cloak myself, if need were. ” 

“You can not stay ? Oh, Maud!” 

“ Hugh will come for me at nine o’clock. And 
I promised to be ready.” 

“ He is a bit of tyrant, then, your Hugh?” 


VEKONICA. 


129 


Maud shook her head and smiled faintly. 

“Do you love him very much, white owl ?” 

The old jesting epithet, coming thus unawares 
from her lips, touched a chord in Veronica’s 
heart which had hitherto remained dumb. She 
burst into tears, and running to Maud, put her 
arms around her, and sobbed upon her neck. 
i\Iaud was thankful to see those tears; but for 
some time neither of the girls said a w'ord. Then 
l\Iaud began to speak of Hugh: to say how good 
he was, how true, honest, and noble-minded, and 
how dearly she loved him. And then — still hold- 
ing Veronica’s head against her breast — she spoke 
of the vicar, of the folks at Shipley, and gave 
what news she could of all that had passed in 
her old home since she left it. She tried, with 
every innocent wile she could think of, to lead 
Veronica’s thoughts back to the days of her child- 
hood and girlhood, that seemed now so far, so 
very for away. 

“ I shall never see the old place again, Maudie. 
Never, never ! But, dear white owl, I have 
something to tell you. I — I — how shall I be- 
gin ? I found a relation in Naples : a cousin by 
my mother’s side.” 

“Was she good to you? Did you like her, 
dear?” 

“It isn’t my fault, it is the fault of your stupid 
English language, if I was unable to convey to 
you at once that my relative is — is cugino, not 
cugina. Don’t look so amazed !” 

‘ ‘ I didn’t mean to look amazed, dear V eronica. ” 

“Well, this cousin — Cesare his name is — is a 
Principe de’ Barletti. Barletti, you know, was 
mamma’s name. And he is a good feUow, and 
very fond of me, and — I mean to marry him, 
by-and-by.” 

“ To marry him ?” 

“Yes.” 

“And — and he is good, you say? and you 
really love him ?” 

‘ ‘ Oh yes ; I — I love him, of course. And he is 
devoted to me. We do not speak of our engage- 
ment as yet; because — you do not need to be 
told why. But I shall assuredly be Princess de’ 
Barletti, Maud.” 

Maud’s mind was in such a chaos of astonish- 
ment that she could hardly speak. It all seemed 
incredible. But she clung to the only hopeful 
])oint she could discern, and repeated once more, 
“ He is good, and you do really love him, Veron- 
ica?” 

“I tell you there is nothing in the world he 
would not do for me,” said Veronica, a little 
sharply. 

Her soft mood was wearing away. IMaud did 
not show herself sufficiently delighted ; by no 
means sufficiently impressed. Astonished she 
was, truly. But not quite in the right manner. 

“And — and is he in Naples now, your cous- 
in?” 

“In Naples !” still more sharply. “ Certainly 
not. He is here.” 

“Oh ! I did not know it. I had not heard 
of it, Veronica.” 

“ I had no other male relative to w'hom I could 
look for due protection and support,” said Veron- 
ica, with some bitterness. 

At this moment a servant appeared, saying 
tliat Miss Desmond was -waited for. 

“I must go, dear. Indeed I must,” said 
Maud, springing up. “And I have not said] 


half that I wanted to say to you. I will write. 
Tell me where I can write to you.” 

Veronica dismissed the servant, who was lin- 
gering near the door, and bade him say that Miss 
Desmond would come immediately. Then she 
kissed and embraced Maud, and told her that a 
letter sent to the care of Mr. Simpson would al- 
ways find her. 

“God bless you, Maudie! Thank you for 
coming. How you hasten ! Ah, this Hugh is 
a tyrant ! Can not he be kept waiting for a mo- 
ment ?” 

“ Good-by, dear Veronica. Think of what I 
have said about Uncle Charles! If you would 
but try to see him before we go. God bless you. 
Good-by!” 

Maud drew down her veil to hide her tearful 
eyes as she went swiftly down the staircase. Ve- 
ronica stole out after her, and looking over the 
balusters into the lighted hall, saw Hugh Lock- 
wood standing there ; saw Maud run up to him ; 
saw the face of protecting fondness he turned 
upon the girlish figure at his side ; saw the quiet 
trustful gesture with which she laid her hand 
upon his arm, and they went away together. 
And then Veronica Lady Gale turned back into 
her own room, and throwing herself on her knees 
beside the chair that Maud had sat in, and bury- 
ing her hot face in its cushions, yielded herself 
up to a tearless paroxysm of rage and yearning 
and regret. And the staid Louise was much sur- 
prised next day to find her mistress’s delicate 
cambric handkerchief all torn and jagged — just, 
she declared, as though some creature had bit- 
ten it. 


CHAPTER XL 

THE PARTNERS. 

After having been introduced to her at Bays- 
water. Miss Betsy Boyce called on Mrs. Love- 
grove. The latter w^as a good deal flattered by 
the visit; whicli might have been inferred by 
those who knew her well, from the loftily patron- 
izing tone she assumed in speaking of Miss Boyce. 

“Miss Boyce is a thoroughly well-connected 
person,” said Mrs. Lovegrove, speaking across 
the dinner-table to her husband with much im- 
pressiveness. 

“ Ah !” said Mr. Lovegrove, who was engaged 
in carving beef for the family. 

“It is curious how immediately one recog- 
nizes blood.” 

“ H’m !” murmured Mr. Lovegrove. “A lit- 
tle of the brown, Augustus ?” 

“No meat for me, Sir, thank you ! Vigil of 
Blessed Ilanocchius,” returned the son of the 
house, austerely. 

“ My papa was -wont to say,” proceeded Mrs. 
Lovegrove, “ that his was some of the best blood 
in England — in a genealogical sense, I mean. 
Not literally, of course, poor man, for he was a 
martyr to gout. ” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Lovegrove, whose in- 
terest in his dinner appeared to be more intense 
than that which he felt in his wife’s respected 
parent. 

“ And in Miss Boyce,” continued Sarah, in an 
instructive manner which was one of her pecul- 
iarities, “there is, despite eccentricity, an air of 
birth and breeding quite unmistakable.” 


130 


VERONICA. 


“She seems a good-natured old soul,” said 
j\Ir. Lovegrove. Whereat his youngest daugh- 
ter, Phoebe, began to giggle. 

“Levity, Phoebe, is low,” said Mrs. Love- 
grove, sententiously. “Miss Boyce gave me a 
terrible account of — ” Mrs. Lovegrove broke oft* 
in her speech, and pointed downward with her 
finger in a manner that might have seemed to 
argue a startling allusion to regions usually ig- 
nored in polite society. But her family under- 
stood very well that she intended to signify Mr. 
Frost, whose office was on the floor beneath the 
room they were sitting in. 

“Eh?” said Mr. Lovegrove. And this time 
he raised his eyes from his plate. 

“I mean of the wife — of the wife. De- 
plorable ! ” 

“ Well, then, she is a less good-natured old 
sold than I thought, ” said Mr. Lovegrove, grave- 
ly. “Mrs. Frost is her friend. I don’t like 
that in Miss Betsy, my dear.” 

“Understand me, Augustus!” said Mrs. 
Lovegrove. 

This phrase was frequently the preface to a 
rather long discourse on her part. 

Pier husband pushed his plate back, and began 
to cut his bread into little dice, which he after- 
ward arranged in symmetrical patterns with 
much care and exactitude. 

“ Understand me ! I am not implicating Miss 
Boyce. F'ar from it. The deductions drawn 
from what she said are mine. I only am re- 
sponsible for them. If too severely logical, I can 
but regret it. But I conceive they will be found 
to be correct when the facts are stated.” 

The facts, when arrived at, were not altogether 
new to Mr. Lovegrove. Mrs. Frost was extrav- 
agant. Mrs. P'rost was selfish in seeking her 
own pleasure and society in a circle which her 
husband did not frequent, and of which he dis- 
a])proved. Mrs. Frost, who after all was but the 
wife of a respectable solicitor, had costly jeAvelry 
fit for any lady in the land! These were the 
main counts of Mrs. T>ovegrove’s indictment; 
and they were closely intermingled with much 
extraneous matter. 

That afternoon Augustus Lovegrove said a few 
words to his father when they were alone togeth- 
er in the office. 

“ Do you know, father, I think that Mr. Frost 
ought to look after that wife of his a little more. ” 

“ Look after her ! What do you mean ?” 

“I mean that he ought to curb her expendi- 
ture a little.” 

“ I suppose he knows his own business best, 
Gus.” 

“ Well, he certainly is veiy clever at other 
people’s business. I don’t deny that. But it 
may be that he is making a mess of his own. 
Such things sometimes happen. I did hear — ” 

‘ ‘ Eh ? What did you hear ?*’ 

“ Well, there are ugly rumors about the Par- 
thenope Embellishment Compari)". And I did 
hear that Mr. PTost had dipped pretty deep in it.” 

“ Gus, I hope you have not repeated any such 
gossip ! It is always injurious to a professional 
man to be supposed unable to keep his tongue 
between his teeth.” 

“I, Sir? Oh, no; you may be quite easy 
about that. But I thought I would mention it 
to you. ” 

“I don’t attach any importance to it, Gus. 


Frost is too clear-sighted and long-headed to 
burn his fingers.” 

’ “So much the better, Sir,” returned Augus- 
tus, quietly. And there was no more said at 
that time on the matter. 

But Mr. Lovegrove thought of it seriously. 
Mr. Ph-ost’s proceedings had been by no means 
satisfactory to him of late. It was not that he 
had neglected the business of the firm, nor that 
he had seemed absent and absorbed in his own 
private affairs on occasions when matters pertain- 
ing to the office should have claimed his best 
energies. Nor was it that Mr. Lovegrove had 
accidentally heard that his partner had dealings 
with a money-lender of questionable reputation ; 
nor the floating rumors that tradesmen had been 
dunning for their bills at the elegant little house 
in Bayswater. It was not any one of these cir- 
cumstances, taken singly, that made Mr. Love- 
grove uneasy ; but the combination of them un- 
questionably did so. And his wife’s gossip re- 
specting INIrs. P'rost’s extravagance, to which he 
would at another time have attached no import- 
ance, became disquieting as adding one more to 
the accumulation of other facts. Later on that 
same afternoon, as he was leaving the office, he 
saw Hugh Lockwood coming out of Mr. Frost's 
private room. On the day when Hugh had given 
testimony as to the hour of Lady Tallis Gale's 
death Mr. Lovegrove and the young man had 
conceived a strong respect for each other. There 
had been the slightest possible acquaintance be- 
tween them up to that time. 

“Good-day, Mr. Lockwood,” said Lovegrove, 
offering his hand. He was not surpidsed to see 
the young man coming from IMr. Frost’s room. 
He was aware of the old and close intimacy that 
had existed between the latter and Hugh’s father. 

“Good-day, Sir.” 

“Is any thing the matter, Mr. Lockwood?” 
asked Lovegrove, struck with the expression of 
Hugh’s face. 

“ Nothing, thank you. That is — to say truth, 
I have been put out a little.” 

And Hugh hastily shook IMr. Lovegrove's 
hand, and walked away with a quick step. ]Mr. 
Lovegrove stood looking after him thoughtfully 
for a moment. Then he turned, and went into 
Mr. Frost’s inner sanctum. He opened the 
door without first knocking at it, and, as the 
heavy panels swung back noiselessly, he had time 
to see his partner before his partner was aware 
of his presence. 

]Mr. Frost was standing at the little fire-place 
with his back to the door. He was leaning with 
his elbow on the mantle-piece, and supporting his 
head on his hands. At a slight noise made by 
Mr. Lovegrove he tunied round, and the other 
man almost started on seeing the haggard face 
that fronted him. Mr. Ph'ost’s forehead was 
knit and creased into deeper folds than usual. 
There was a dark red flush upon it, and it seemed 
expressive of intense pain of mind or body. His 
jaw hung, and his usually firmly closed lips were 
parted. His eyes stared wildly, and seemed 
hardly to take note of that which they looked 
upon. All this lasted but for a second. He 
passed his hands over his forehead, and said : 

“ Hullo, Lovegrove ! I didn’t hear you come 
in. Do you want me? I hope not, just now ; 
for I have an appointment, and must be oft'.’' 

“I did want to say a word to you. I can 


VERONICA. 


131 


wait, however. Do you know, Frost, that you 
are not looking at airwell?” 

“ Am I not? Well, I have a devil of a head- 
ache.” 

“Don’t you do any thing for it? You really 
do look uncommonly ill.” 

“There' 's no cure for these things but time 
and patience. I have been overworking my- 
self lately, I suppose. Or else I’m growing old. ” 

“Old! nonsense! You are — why you. must 
be five years my junior, and I — ” 

“Oh, you are as sound as a roach, and as 
fresh as a daisy. But, my dear fellow, age can 
not always be counted by years. I feel worn 
out sometimes. How I hate this ceaseless grind, 
grind, grind at the mill!” 

“ll’m! Well, for my part, I can never be 
thoroughly happy out of harness for long to- 
gether. When we take our sea-side holiday 
every summer, I am always the first to get tired 
of it. I long for what you call the pounce and 
parchment.” 

“ Happy you !” 

“If you hate it so, why don’t you retire and 
give up your share of the business to my Gus? 
You haven’t a tribe of daughters to provide for. 
You must be rich enough.” 

“ Rich !” echoed Mr. Frost. “Who shall say 
w'hat ‘ rich’ means in these days ? And besides, 
you know, one always wants a little more.” 

He had by this time nearly recovered his usu- 
al mien, and spoke with the self-confident care- 
less air of superiority which had never failed to 
impress IMr. Lovegrove. 

“Ay, ay, one knows all that,” said the lat- 
ter. “Why then, on the whole, you have — 
things have not gone so badly with you, eh ?” 

Frost gave him a quick and curious glance. 
Then his mouth stretched itself in a forced smile, 
to which, in the impossibility of attaining any 
thing like spontaneity, he communicated an ex- 
aggerated expi-ession of irony. He was con- 
scious of this exaggeration ; but his muscles were 
not under his own control. 

“Oh yes, they have ! ” he exclaimed. ‘ ‘ Things 
have gone very badly indeed with me. I haven’t 
got what I want by some ten or fifteen thousand 
pounds.” 

“ Ten or fifteen thou — by Jove !” 

“Well, you know, Lovegrove, every man has 
his hobby. Mine has been to die worth a cer- 
tain sum. I sha’n’t tell you Avhat sum ; you 
would be shocked at the extravagance of my de- 
sires. Not having yet reached the figure I had 
set myself, I consider that I have the right to 
grumble. Consequently I do grumble — to the 
world. But,” he added, with a sudden change 
of manner, “but between friends and partners, 
like you and me, I may say that on the whole — 
on the whole, my nest isn’t badly feathered.” 

“I thought it was — I thought so!” replied 
Lovegrove, nodding his head with a kind of 
sober triumph. 

“Ah, but I grumble !” 

“Rich men always do. Only, if I were you. 
Frost, I wouldn’t grumble too much!” 

“Eh?” 

“Folks might take you at your word. And 
as all the world does not know how rich you 
want to be — why — don’t you see ?” 

Mr. Frost laughed a little dry laugh, and 
clapped his partner on the slioulder. 


“Ah,” said he, “God knows there is where- 
withal for plenty of grumbling without being 
pool*. I’m harassed to death !” 

“You have just had young Lockwood with 
you. I met him coming out.” 

“You met him! Did he — did he say any 
thing ?” 

“ Say any thing ? He said, ‘ Good-day.’ Oh, 
and he said, too, that he had been a good deal 
put out.” 

“Put out ! He is terribly pig-headed.” 

“ Is he ? Well, I rather liked him. I thought 
he came out so well in that affair of proving 
the time of Lady Tallis’s death. But I always 
thought you were such a great friend of his. ” 

“I tried to be. I ofi'ered to get him a fine 
position with a company abroad. But there are 
people whom it is impossible to befriend. They 
won’t let you.” 

“ Dear me ! Then he refused your offer ?” 

“Yes; I had given him a little time to con- 
sider of it. But he came to-day to — to say that 
he would not hear of it. And that not in the 
most civil terms, either.” 

‘ ‘ Oh ! So that was what he had been to see 
you about ?” 

“Of course! Did he say that he had come 
for any thing else?” 

“Not at all. I told you what he said. But 
talking of companies abroad, Frost, I wanted to 
say one word to you. I did hear — ” 

“ Another time — another time, Lovegrove. I 
shall be late as it is. I have an appointment in 
the City;” and Mr. Frost pulled out his watch 
impatiently. 

“Oh, well, I won’t detain you. Some day — 
some evening, after business hours, I should like 
to have a quiet chat with you, though. ” 

“Of course. Delighted. Whenever you like.” 

Mr. Frost hurried off, and threw himself into 
the first empty cab that happened to be passing. 
As Mr. Lovegrove came out again through tlie 
front office, the senior clerk w*as putting on his 
hat and gloves preparatory to going home. 

“Oh, Mr. Lovegrove,” said the clerk, “you 
were asking me about the bill of costs in Bow- 
cher V. Bowcher !” 

“Yes, I Avas. Has it been paid ?” 

“It has. Sir. Their solicitors sent down this 
afternoon, and the bill was paid. You were not 
here. Mr. Frost took the notes, saying that he 
was going into the City this afternoon and would 
bank them.” 

“ Oh, very well, Mr. Burgess.” 

When the clerk had left Mr. Lovegrove’s face 
changed. 

“Another instance of Frost’s thoughtless- 
ness,” he muttered. “He takes money to the 
bank for the firm, and does not go to the City 
until after banking hours. It had much better 
have been sent in the regular way. I suppose 
the truth is, he is too busy growing rich on his 
own account. I should never have guessed that 
Frost had the ambition of being wealthy. I hope 
he won’t burn his fingers with speculations in try- 
ing to grow rich in a hurry. But he certainly 
is a very superior man ! A most superior man 
is Frost. All the same, when your clever fellow 
does make a mistake, it is apt to be a big one.” 


VERONICA. 


lo2 


CHAPTER XII. 

TROUBLE. 

Mr. Frost left his oflEice in a state of pitiable 
disorder and anxiety of mind. It has been said 
that Sidney Frost hated failure ; and still more 
the avowal of failure. He had originally in- 
volved himself in a web of dishonorable compli- 
cations for the sake of winning the woman who 
had inspired the sole strong passion of his life. 
And it was still his infatuated love for her that 
caused the greater part of his distress. What 
would Georgy do? What would Georgy say? 
How would Georgy bear it if — the worst should 
happen ? These were the chief questions with 
which he tormented himself. And at the same 
time he well knew, in his heart, that she would be 
cold as ice and hard as granite to his sufferings. 

His business in the City, and the rumors he 
heard there, did not tend to reassure him. He 
drove to his home jaded and wretched. The 
headache which he had falsely pleaded to Mr. 
Lovegrove had become a reality. He threw 
himself on a sofa in the drawing-room and shut 
his eyes. But? his nerves were in a state of too 
great irritation to allow him to sleep. Nor did 
the cessation from movement seem to bring re- 
pose. He tried to stretch and relax his limbs 
into a position of ease ; but he ached in every 
muscle, and was as weary as a man who has 
gone through a day of hard bodily labor. Pres- 
ently his wife entered the room. Care, and 
toil, and anxiety had set no mark on her. Her 
peach-like cheeks were smooth and fresh ; her 
eyes bright and clear ; her hair was glossy, abund- 
ant, and unmingled with a thread of gray. She 
was dressed in a dinner costume whose unob- 
trusive simplicity might have deceived an unin- 
structed eye as to its costliness. But, both in 
material and fashion, Mrs. Frost’s attire was of 
the most expensive. Not a detail was imper- 
fect : from the elegant satin slipper that fitted 
her well-formed foot to a nicety, to the fine old 
cream-colored lace round her bosom. There 
was no jewel on her neck or in her ears ; not a 
chain, not a brooch, not a pin. But on one 
round white arm she wore, set in a broad band 
of gold, the famous opal, whose mild, milky lus- 
tre, pierced here and there by darts of fire, con- 
trasted admirably with the deep purple of her 
dress. Her husband, lying on the sofa, looked 
at her from beneath his half-closed eyelids, as 
she stood for a moment uncertain whether he 
were awake or asleep. She was very beautiful. 
What dignity in the simple steadiness of her 
attitude ! How placid the expanse of her broad 
white forehead ! How sweet and firm her closed 
red lips ! How mild, grave, and matronly the 
light in her contemplative eyes ! She seemed to 
bring an air of peace into the room. Even the 
slight perfume that hung about her garments 
was soothing and delicious. If she would but 
stand so, silent and adorable, until her husband’s 
eyes should close, and sleep come down upon 
them like a balm ! 

Thought is wonderfully rapid. Sidney Frost 
had time to see all that we have described, and 
to frame the above-recorded Avish, before his wife 
opened her handsome mouth, and said, in the 
rich, low voice habitual to her : 

“Sidney, that man has been dunning again 
for his bili.” 


Crash ! The sweet vision AA'as gone, shattered 
into broken fragments like a clear lake-picture dis- 
turbed by a stone thrown into its Avaters. The 
veins in Frost’s forehead started and throbbed 
distractingly. He could not suppress a groan — 
more of mental than physical pain, however — 
and he pressed his hot hands to his still hotter 
broAV. 

“Sidney! do you hear? That insolent man 
has been dunning. You don’t seem to consider 
hoAV disagreeable it is for me!” 

“What insolent man? Who is it that you 
mean?” muttered Frost, closing his eyes com- 
pletely. 

“You may Avell ask. Duns have been quite 
numerous lately,” rejoined Mrs. Frost, Avith a 
sneer, as she seated herself in an arm-chair op- 
posite to the sofa. “But none of them haA'e 
been so insupportable as that Wilson. ” 

“ The jeAA'eler ?” 

“Yes; the jeAveler. And you knoAV, really 
and truly, Sidney, this kind of thing must be 
put a stop to.” 

Frost smiled bitterly. 

“Hoav do you suggest putting a stop to it?” 
he asked. 

“/ suggest! You are too amusing.” 

It AA'ould be impossible to convey the disdain 
of the tone in Avhich this Avas said. 

“ Wilson came here and saAV you, and Avas in- 
solent ?” 

“Very.” 

“ What did he say ?” 

“Hoav can I repeat word for word Avhat he 
said ? He declared that he must have the price 
of the opal bracelet. I happened to have it on, 
and that put it into his head, I suppose. He 
said, too, very impertinently, that people Avho 
can not afford to pay for such jcAvels had no 
right to Avear them. I told him that was your 
affair.” 

“ My afftiir. I don’t Avear bracelets.” 

“You knoAV that it is nonsense talking in that 
Avay, Sidney. I beg you to understand that I 
can not be exposed to the insults of trades- 
people.” 

“Can you not? Listen, Georgina. To-mor- 
roAv you must give me that opal Avhen I go to 
business. I shall drive first to Wilson’s, and 
ask him to take back the bracelet. He Avill 
probably make me pay for your having had it 
so long ; but, as the stone is a really fine one, I 
think he Avill consent to take it back.” 

‘ ‘ Take back my bracelet ! ” 

“It is not your bracelet. Do you remember 
that, Avhen you first spoke of buying it, I forbade 
you to do so, and told you the price of it aa'us be- 
yond my means to pay ?” 

“Take back my bracelet !” 

“ Come here, Georgy. Sit doAAm beside me. 
Ah, how fresh and cool your hand is! Put it 
on my forehead for a moment. Listen, Georgy. 
I am in great trouble and embarrassment. I 
have a considerable sum of money Avhich I — I — 
Avhich I owe, to make up Avithin six months. Six 
months is the limit of time alloAved me.” 

Mrs. Frost shrugged her shoulders Avith the air 
of a person avIio is being bored by unnecessary de- 
tails. ‘ ‘ W ell ?” she said. 

Her husband suppressed his indignation at her 
indifference, and |)roceeded : 

“ During that time I shall have to strain every 


VERONICA. 


133 


nen’e, to tiy every means, to scrape together ev- 
ery pound. I shall have — ” 

“ 1 thought,” said Georgina, interrupting him, 
“that your journey to Naples was to make your 
fortune. I have not yet perceived any of the fine 
results that were to flow from it. ” 

“ Matters have not gone as I hoped and ex- 
pected. Still I do not despair even yet. No ; far 
from it. I believe the shares will come all right, 
if we can but tide over — ” He checked himself, 
after a glance at her face. It was calm, impas- 
sive, utterly unsympathizing. Her eyes were cast 
down, and were contemplating the opal bracelet 
as the arm which it adorned lay gracefully on her 
lap. Sidney Frost heaved a deep sigh, that end- 
ed in something like a moan. 

‘ ‘ I don’t know whether you are listening to 
me, or whether you understand me, Georgina ?” 

“ I heard what you said. But I can’t see Avhy 
you should want to take away my opal. I never 
heard of such a thing. I little expected that such 
a thing would ever happen to me. ” 

“Be thankful if nothing worse haj^pens to 
you. ” 

' “Worse! What can be worse ? I promised to 
wear the bracelet at Lady IMaxwell’s, on Wednes- 
day, to show to a friend of hers, a Polish count- 
ess, who boasts of her jewels. Lady Maxwell had 
told her of my bracelet, and had said, moreover, 
that mine was far handsomer than any single opal 
she had ever seen.” 

“ You must make some excuse to her.” 

“ What excuse can I make? It is too bad!” 
And Mrs. Frost put her delicate handkerchief to 
her eyes. 

Her husband remained silent ; and after a lit- 
tle while she looked up at him in perplexity. She 
did not often have recourse to tears. But she had 
hitherto found them infallible in softening Sid- 
ney’s heart toward her, let him be as angiy as he 
might. 

Presently the dinner-gong sounded. After a 
short pause, Mrs. Frost wiped her eyes, and said, 
in a cold voice, “ Are you not coming to dinner, 
Sidney ?” 

“No ; it is impossible. I could eat nothing.” 

“Why not?” asked Georgina, turning her 
large eyes slowly on him. 

“Oh, you have not, of course, observed so 
trifling a matter ; but the fact is, I am very un- 
well.” 

“No; I hadn’t noticed it,” she responded, 
with cool naivete; 

After an instant’s reflection it struck her that 
this indisposition might be the cause of her hus- 
band's unwonted severity. Sidney was often 
hot-tempered and cross, but such steady oppo- 
sition to her wishes she was quite unused to. 
The opal might not be lost after all. She went 
to him and touched his forehead with her cool 
lips. 

“ Poor Sidney, how hot his head is !” she ex- 
claimed. “I will send you a little soup. Try 
to take something, won’t you ?” 

He pressed her hand fondly. The least act 
of kindness from her made him grateful. 

“Dear Georgy! She does really love me a 
little,” he thought, as she glided with her peace- 
ful step out of the room. And then he began to 
meditate whether it might not be possible to 
spare her the humiliation of parting with her 
bracelet. 


But soon a remembrance darted througli his 
mind, which made his head throb, and his heart 
beat. No, no ; it was impossible ! Any sacri- 
flce must be made to avoid, if possible, public 
disgrace and ruin. It would be better for Geor- 
gy to give up every jewel she possessed than to 
confront that final blow. Yes ; the sacrifice 
must be made, for the present. And who could 
tell what piece of good luck might befall him be- 
fore the end of the six months ? 

This was but the beginning of a period of un- 
speakable anxiety for Frost, during which he 
suffered alternations of hope and despondencj", 
and feverish expectation and crushing humilia- 
tion, and during which he was more and more 
delivered up to the conviction that his wife was 
the incarnation of cold egotism. He strove 
against the conviction. Sometimes he fought 
with it furiously and indignantly ; sometimes he 
tried to coax and lull it. When he should be 
finally vanquished by the irrefragable truth, it 
would go hard with him. Of all this Georgina 
knew nothing. Had she known, she would have 
cared ; because she would have perceived that 
when the truth should have overcome the last of 
her husband’s self-delusions it must also go hard 
with /ler. 

Meanwhile there was anxiety enough — with 
which Frost was intimately connected — at the 
house in Gower Street. Maud and the vicar 
were gone away to Shipley. The upper rooms 
were shut up, and the house seemed almost de- 
serted. There had come to be a barrier between 
Hugh and his mother. It did not appear in 
their outward behavior to each other. He was 
as dutifully, she as tenderly, affectionate as ever. 
But the unrestrained confidence of their inter- 
course was at an end. It must always be so 
when two loving persons spe.ak together with the 
consciousness of a forbidden topic lying like a 
naked sword between them. Concealment was 
so intrinsically antagonistic to Hugh’s character 
that his mother’s aversion to speak confidingly 
with him respecting the confession she had made 
once for all was extremely painful to him. And 
his pain, which was evident to her, onl}'^ served 
to make her the more reticent. She thought, 

‘ ‘ My son can never again love me as he loved 
me before I wounded his pride in me. He is 
kind still ; but I am not to him what I was. ” 

Maud was sadly missed by both mother and 
son. Her presence in the house had been like 
the perfume of flowers in a room. Now that 
she was gone, Zillah often longed for the silent 
sweetness of her young face. Maud had been 
able to soften the touch of sternness which 
marked Hugh’s character, and which had in 
past years sent many a pang of apprehension to 
his mother’s heart as she thought how hard his 
judgment of her would be when the dreaded 
moment of confession should arrive. And now 
the confession had been made, and her son had 
been loving and forbearing, and had uttered no 
hint of reproach, and yet — and yet Zillah tor- 
mented herself with the thought that she was 
shut out from the innermost chamber of his 
heart. Hugh had lost no time in telling his mo- 
ther of his interview with Mr. Frost. He re- 
lated all the details of it conscientiously, but 
without his usual frank spontaneity ; for he saw 
in her face how she shrank from the recital ; 
and in the constraint of his manner, she, on her 


131 


VERONICA. 


jjart, read coldness and estrangement. She felt 
frightened as she pictured to herself the conflict 
of those two strong wills. Zillah, too, could be 
sti'ong ; but her strength lay in endurance less 
than action. And, besides, twenty years of se- 
cret self-reproach and the sting of a tormented 
and tormenting conscience had sapped the firm- 
ness of her character. 

“You did not show him any mercy, then, 
Hugh ?” she said, with her head leaning against 
her small pale hand, when her son had finished 
his narrative. 

“ Mercy ! Yes, mother, surely I showed him 
more mercy than he deserved ! I gave him six 
months’ grace.” 

“ Six months’ grace. After five-and-twenty 
years of procrastination, how short those six 
months will seem to him !” 

“And how long the five-and-twenty years 
seemed to you ! But I told him the facts of the 
case plainly. The chance of buying the business 
I have set my heart on will remain open to me 
for yet half a year longer. If by the end of that 
time I have not given my answer, the chance will 
l)e lost. He vmst repay the money he stole by 
that time.” 

“Stole, Hugh! You did not use that word 
to him ?” 

“No, mother, I did not use that word ; but I 
should have been justified in using it.” 

“And how did he — did he seem? Was be 
angiy and defiant, or did he seem secure of his 
power to pay the money?” 

“He was greatly taken by surprise; but he 
has great self-command. And he is so clever 
and specious that I do not wonder at his having 
imposed on you. He tried to take a high hand 
Avith me, and reminded me that he had been my 
father’s friend. ‘Yes; a false friend,’ said I. 
Then he was silent. I did not reproach him with 
violence. I could not have brought myself to 
speak even as harshly as I did, bad he met me in 
a difi'erent spirit. ” 

“ Ho you think he will really have a difficulty 
in repaying the money ? I can not understand 


it. He must be rich. Every one says that the 
firm is so jjrosperous.” 

“He recovered himself after a minute or so, 
and began to expatiate on the brilliant prospects 
of the speculations in which he is engaged. He 
waxed eloquent at the sound of his own voice ; 
but I stopped him. ‘ Heeds, not words, are the 
only arguments that I can accept from you, Mr. 
Frost,’ said I. ‘You have not now got a woman 
and a child to deal with. I am a man, and I 
shall exact my own unflinchingly.’ Before I left 
the office, lie ofiered me his hand, but I could 
not take it.” 

“You refused his hand ? That must have cut 
him to the quick. He is such a proud man.” 

“ So am I,” retorted Hugh, dryly. 

Zillah bent silently over her work. Hugh did 
not see the tears that brimmed up into her eyes. 
Hugh did not guess the sharp pain that was in 
her heart. He had so fully and freely forgiven 
whatever injury his mother’s weakness had occa- 
sioned to him — he had such pity in his man’s 
heart for the unmerited sufterings that this frail, 
delicate, defenseless woman had undergone from 
her youth upward, that it never entered into his 
mind how her sensitive conscience made her at- 
tribute to herself a large share of the contempt 
and disgust he expressed for Mr. Frost. 

“I am at least an accomplice in defrauding 
my son of his inheritance I” said the poor woman 
to herself. “ Hugh does not mean to be unkind ; 
but he must feel that all blame thrown upon Sid- 
ney Frost reflects on me.” 

The next time Mrs. Lockwood spoke, it was 
on an indifferent topic ; and her son was hurt 
that she should so resolutely, as it seemed to him, 
shut him out from any confidential communion 
with her. 

There needed some link between them ; some 
one who, loving both, should enable them to un- 
derstand one another. Maud might have done 
this good office. She might have served them 
both with head and heart. But Maud was not 
there, and the days passed heavily in the widow's 
house. 


BOO 

CHAPTER I. 

A RETROSPECTIVE MEDITATION. 

An April day smiled and wept over Shipley. 
^Yherever the clouds broke after a shower, the 
sky showed of a pale blue color. Near the ze- 
nith floated white robes of vapor. Below them 
were long lateral bars of gray cloud stretching 
singularly straight across the horizon. They 
were vague and unfinished at the ends, like 
lines drawn by a soft lead -pencil; and they 
seemed of about that color against tlie blue and 
white. A few early flowers peeped out in the 
garden borders. When the sun shone fitfully 
on the old yew-tree, it was seen to glisten with 
trembling diamond-drops of rain, A blackbird 
piped his sweet clear song from the shrubbery. 
Light and shadow animated the flatness of the 
distant Avoid, whence came the many-voiced bleat 
of lambs blended into one sound. A solitary 


K V. 

sheep cropped the short turf in St. Gildas’s 
grave-yard. 

A young lady sat there on the low stone-Avall, 
looking across the flats toward Hanecester. She 
sat so still that the grazing sheep came quite 
near to her as its teeth cut the short grass with 
a crisp sound in regular cadence. It was Maud 
Desmond who sat there on the wall of the grave- 
yard, and whose golden hair Avas ruffled under 
her hat by the April breeze. She Avas absorbed 
in a reverie. She had been in Shipley noAv near- 
ly a Aveek, and she Avas mentally passing in re- 
vicAV all the traits and circumstances she had 
observed dufing that time, Avhich served to shoAV 
Avhat changes had taken place in the vicar’s mode 
of life, and in the vicar himself, since she had 
left his house for her aunt’s. 

At first sight things had seemed little altered. 
But she soon found that there was a change in 
Mr. Levincourt Avhich she had not observed in 


VERONICA. 135 


liim in London. In the first place, he seemed 
to have broken completely tlie few relations he 
had ever held with his country neighbors in the 
rank of gentlefolks. That was perhaps to be ex- 
pected with a character such as Mr. Levincourt’s ; 
it was natural that he should shun any possible 
occasion of reading in the manner, or even in the 
faces, of his equals that he had become an object 
of pity to them. But this was not all. It seem- 
ed to Maud that after the first paroxysm of grief, 
and wounded feeling, and crushed pride had 
ceased, the whole character of her guardian had 
subtly deteriorated. He shrank from the socie- 
ty of his equals ; but, on the other hand, he ap- 
peared by no means to shun that of his inferiors. 
He would sit for hours enduiing the baldest chat 
of Mrs. Meggitt, and women such as she. Maud 
was shocked and astonished to find him, one 
day, listening almost with avidity to some gos- 
siping details of village scandal from the lips 
of Mugworthy, the parish clerk. The air of 
personal refinement which had formerly dis- 
tinguished him seemed to be disappearing un- 
der the influence of a slipshod laziness — a kind 
of slothful indifference to every thing save his 
own immediate comfort. He was by turns 
querulous, almost lachrymose, and self- assert- 
ing. It Avas terrible to Maud to see his whole 
character thus lowered ; and she tried to believe 
that the change was but temporary, and that 
perhaps she even exaggerated it in her affection- 
ate anxiety. 

During the journey from London her mind 
was full of that which she had to reveal to him 
respecting Veronica. And she had dreaded the 
task, being entirely uncertain how he would re- 
ceive it. But when she began to perceive the 
change in him, she conceived the hope that her 
tidings might at least have the good effect of 
rousing him from the apathy into Avhich he 
seemed to have allowed all the higher part of his 
nature to fall, while he fed the daily life of his 
mind with contemptible trivialities. She had 
approached the subject one evening when she 
and her guardian were alone together in the old 
chintz-furnished sitting-room after tea. Maud 
had quietly opened the piano-forte, and had 
played through softly a quaint andante from one 
of Haydn’s sonatas. 

The piece was chosen with the cunning instinct 
of affection. It was soothing and gracious, and 
yet, in its old-fashioned stateliness, it did not too 
deeply probe the spring of grief. The somewhat 
wiry tones of the well-worn instrument rendered 
crisply every twirl and turn of the brave old 
music under Maud’s light fingers. In the very 
twang of the yellow keys there was a staid pa- 
thos. It affected the ear as the sweet worn voice 
of an old woman affects it — that thin quavering 
pipe, to which some heart has thrilled, some pulse 
beat responsive, in the days of long ago. IMaud 
played on, and the spring twilight deepened, and 
the vicar listened, silent, in his arm-chair by the 
empty fire-place. He had taken to smoking 
within the past year. He had bought a great 
meerschaum with a carved fantastic bowl, and 
the color of the pipe bore testimony to the per- 
sistency of its owner in the use of the weed. As 
Maud played softly in the gathering dusk, the 
puffs of smoke from the vicar’s chair grew rarer 
and rarer, and at last they ceased. Maud rose 
from the piano, and went to sit beside her guard- 


ian. He Avas still silent. The influence of the 
music was upon him. 

“ Uncle Charles,” said Maud, in a low voice, 
“I have something to tell you, and something to 
ask you. I will do the asking first. Will you 
forgive me for having delayed what I haA-e to say 
until noAv?” 

“I do not think it likely that you have need 
of my forgiveness, Maud. What forgiveness is 
between us must be chiefly from you to me, not 
from me to you.” 

“Don’t say that, dear Uncle Charles! You 
touch my conscience too nearly. And yet, at 
the time, I thought — and Hugh thought — that it 
Avas better to keep the secret for a Avhile. I hope 
you Avill think so too, and forgive me. Uncle 
Charles, some one is dead Avhom you kneAv.” 

The vicar gave a Anolent start. Maud, Avith 
her hand on the elboAv of his chair, felt it shake, 
and she added, quickly: “It is no one Avhose 
death you can regret. It is aAvful to think that 
the extinction of a human life should be cause 
for rejoicing, rather than sorrcAA--, in the hearts 
jpf all Avho kneAV him. But it is so. Sir John 
Hale is dead.” The A'icar dreAV a long, deep 
breath. His head drooped doAvn on his breast ; 
but Maud felt, rather than suaa' — for it Avas by 
this time almost dark Avithin the house — that he 
Avas listening intently. In a trembling voice, 
but clearly and Avith steadiness of purpose, Maud 
told her guardian of Veronica’s marriage, of her 
inheritance, and of her actual presence in Lon- 
don. She merely suppressed in her narrative 
tAVO facts. First, the Avill, Avhich had made her 
(Maud) heiress to Sir John Gale’s Avealth ; and, 
secondly, the late baronet’s intention of defraud- 
ing Veronica at the last. She and Hugh had 
agreed that it would be Avell to spare Mr. LcA'in- 
court the useless pain of these reA'elations. The 
vicar listened in unbroken silence Avhile Maud 
continued to speak. 

When she ceased, after a little pause he said : 
“And she aa'us in London! My daughter Avas 
Avithin a feAV streets of me and made no sign! 
She made not any — the least — attempt to see 
me or to ask my pardon !” 

His tone Avas deep and angry. He breathed 
quickly and noisily, like a man fighting against 
emotion. Still Maud felt that in his very re- 
proach there AA'as a hopeful symptom of some 
softening in the hardness of his resentment. 

“She should have done so, dear Uncle Charles. 
I told her so, and she did not deny it. But I — 
I — believe she Avas afraid.” 

“Afraid! Veronica LeAuncourt afraid ! She 
Avas not afraid of disgracing my home and im- 
bittering my life. But she Avas afraid to come 
and abase her Avicked pride at my feet, Avhen she 
might haA'e done so AA’ith some chance of bring- 
ing me — not comfort; no, nothing can cancel 
her CA'il past — but at least some little alleviation 
of the Aveight of disgrace that has been boAving 
me to the earth ever since her flight.” 

Maud could not but feel, Avith a sensation of 
shame at the feeling, that the A'icar’s Avords did 
not touch her heart. There Avas nothing in them 
that Avas not true. But in some Avay they rang 
holloAV. How different it had been Avhen the 
vicar had first discovered his daughter’s flight, 
and afterAvard the name of the man she had fled 
Avith ! Then every Avord, every gesture, had been 
full of terrible rage, and grief, and horror. The 


136 


VERONICA. 


vicar had been in agonized earnest then, no doubt. 
But now, as he spoke, it was as though he felt 
the necessity of assuming something that was 
not in his heart, as though he were ashamed of 
expressing relief at Maud’s news, and made it a 
point of pride to excite his own wrath against 
his daughter. 

Maud had yet more to tell him. She must 
reveal the fact of Veronica’s engagement to the 
Prince Barletti. And she much feared that the 
communication of this fact would imbitter her 
guardian still more. She could not see the ex- 
pression of his face as she spoke, and he did not 
interrupt her by the least word until she paused, 
having finished what she had to say. Then the 
vicar murmured in an artificial voice, as though 
he were restraining its natural expression : 

“ Her mother was a Barletti.” 

“ Yes. This gentleman is Veronica’s cousin.” 

“Prince — Prince Baidetti! Is that the ti- 
tle?” 

“Prince Cesare de’ Barletti. Veronica as- 
sured me that he is devotedly attached to her. 
He was a friend to her in her trouble abroad^ 
and—” 

“Barletti is a noble name — an old name. 
That w'retch was a parvenu sprung from the 
mud — a clay image covered with gilding.” 

There was a long silence. At length the vicar 
spoke again : 

“And my daughter was in London, and made 
no attempt to see me. She allows me to learn 
this news from other lips than her own ! My 
sorrow, my misery, my suspense, matter nothing 
to her.” 

“ Veronica told me that she w’ould write to 
you as soon as we got back to Shipley. She said 
that she believed it best, on the sole ground of 
consideration for you, for her to wait before ad- 
dressing you until all should be settled.” 

“ Settled ! ” cried the vicar, sharply. “What 
was there to settle ?” 

“ Her — her inheritance ; and — and the proof 
of her marriage. She may have been mistaken 
in delaying to communicate with you ; indeed, I 
think she was mistaken ; but I do believe she 
was sincere when she professed to think it for 
the best.” 

The vicar rose and walked to the door. Ar- 
rived there, he paused, and said, “ Until she 
does address me, and address me in a proper 
spirit, I shall take no notice of her whatsoever. 
None ! She will still be to me as one dead. 
Nothing — no human power shall induce me to 
waver in my resolution.” 

Maud could see the vicar’s hands w’aving 
through the gloom with the action of repulsing 
or pushing away some one. 

“She will write to you, dear Uncle Charles,” 
said Maud ; still with the same disagreeable per- 
ception that the vicar’s words and tone were hol- 
low, and with the same feeling of being ashamed 
of the perception. Then the vicar left the room 
and went out into the garden. He relit his pipe, 
and as he paced up and down the gravel path 
Maud watched his figure for a long time, loom- 
ing faintly as he came within range of the light 
from the windows of the house, and then reced- 
ing again into the darkness. Next day there 
came a letter for Mr. Levincourt from Veroni- 
ca. Maud recognized her large, pretentious 
handwriting on the black-bordered envelope. 


with its crest and monogram, and feint, sweet 
perfume. The vicar took the letter to his own 
room and read it in private. He did not show 
it to Maud, nor communicate its contents to her 
further than to say that evening, just before re- 
tiring to bed : “ It appears, Maud, that the pres- 
ent baronet. Sir Matthew Gale, has behaved in 
a very becoming manner in immediately receiv- 
ing and acknowledging his cousin’s widow.” 

“ Oh, dear Uncle Charles, the letter was from 
Veronica! She has written to you. I am so 
thankful !” 

The tears were in Maud’s eyes as she clasped 
her hands fervently together and looked up into 
her guardian’s face. He put his hand on her 
head and kissed her forehead. 

“Good, sweet, pure-hearted child!” he said, 
softly. “Ah, Maudie, would to God that I had 
been blessed with a daughter like you ! But I 
did not deserve that blessing ; I did not deserve 
it, Maudie.” 

It was on all these sayings and doings just 
narrated that Maud Desmond was pondering as 
she sat alone in the church-yard of St. Gildas. 


CHAPTER II. 

MISS TURTLE. 

Maud sat absorbed in a reverie that prevent- 
ed her from hearing a footstep that approached 
quickly. Pit-pat, pit-pat, the step came nearer. 
It was light, but as regular as that of a soldier 
on the march. Presently, a shabby hat, with an 
erratic feather in it, rose above the wall of the 
church-yard, and little Miss Turtle, Mrs. Meg- 
gitt’s governess, appeared, with a parcel in one 
hand and a basket in the other. She walked 
straight up to Maud, and then stopped. 

“Good-afternoon, Miss Desmond,” said Miss 
Turtle, and looked into Maud’s face with a de- 
mure expression, half sly, half shy. 

“Oh, I — I did not see you. Miss Turtle. How 
do you do ?” 

“I startled you, I’m afraid. I hope you’re 
not subject to palpitation, IMiss Desmond ? I 
am. Oh dear me, I am quite tired! Would 
you allow me to seat myself here for a few min- 
utes and rest ?” 

Maud smiled at the humility of the request. 
The wall of St. Gildas’s church-yard was .cer- 
tainly as free to Miss Turtle as to herself. She 
made room for the little governess beside her. 
Miss Turtle first disposed her parcel and basket 
on the top of the rough wall, and then made a 
queer little spring — something like the attempt 
to fly of a matronly barn-door hen unused to 
quit terra firma — and seated herself beside 
them. IMaud was by no means delighted at 
thus encountering Miss Turtle. But she was 
too gentle and too generous to risk hurting the 
little woman’s feelings by at once getting up to 
depart. So she made up her mind to sit a while 
and endure Miss Turtle’s discourse as best she 
might. They had met before, since Maud’s re- 
turn to Shipley. Miss Turtle and her two pu- 
pils, Farmer Meggitt’s daughters, had saluted 
Maud as she came out of church on the first 
Sundny after her arrival at the vicarage, having 
previously devoured her ■with their eyes during 
the service. 


VERONICA. 


137 


“And how, if I may venture to inquire, is our 
respected vicar?” said Miss Turtle. * 

“ Mr. Levincouvt is quite well, thank you.” 

“Is he, really ? Ah ! many changes since we 
last had the honor of seeing you in Shipley, Miss 
Desmond.” 

.“Indeed! If you did not say so, I should 
suppose, from what I have seen and heard hith- 
erto, that there were, on the contrary, very few 
changes.” 

“Oh dear me! Mrs. Sack — you have heard 
about Mrs. Sack ?” 

“No. Is she ill?” 

“Joined a Wesleyan congregation at Shipley 
Magna. Gone over to Dissent, root and branch ! 
I am surprised that you had not heard of it.” 

Maud explained that Mrs. Sack’s conversion 
to Methodism had not been widely discussed in 
London. 

“And she’s not the only one, IVliss Desmond,” 
pursued the governess. 

“Indeed!” 

‘ ‘ Oh no, not the only one by any means. A 
considerable number of the congregation of St. 
Gildas’s have gone over too. They say that the 
dissenting gentleman who preaches at Shipley 
Magna (he is not, strictly speaking, a gentle- 
man either. Miss Desmond, being in the retail 
grocery line, and in a small way of business) is 
so very earnest. I hope you will not think I did 
wrong ; but the truth is, I did go to an evening 
meeting at their chapel once, with Mrs. Sack, 
and I must say he w^as most eloquent. I really 
tliought at one time that he would have a stroke 
or something. The glass in the windows jingled 
again, and I came home with a splitting head- 
ache.” 

“ He must have been extraordinarily eloquent, 
indeed,” said Maud, quietly. 

“ Oh, he was ! But then, as I say, wliere are 
your principles, if you let yourself be tempted 
aw'ay from your church like that ? Didn’t you 
notice. Miss Desmond, how thin the congrega- 
tion was last Sunday ?” 

Maud was obliged to confess that she had no- 
ticed it. 

“Then there’s Mr. Snow^e, junior.” 

“ He has not joined the Methodists, has he, 
Miss Turtle ?” 

“ Oh no. Quite the contrary. But he is en- 
gaged to be married, I believe, and the lady hates 
music. Just fancy that. Miss Desmond, and he 
such a confirmed amachure. ” 

Little Miss Turtle shook her head in a mel- 
ancholy manner, as though she had been reluct- 
antly accusing Herbert Snowe of “confirmed” 
gambling or “confinned” drunkenness. 

“Then,” said Maud, “I am afraid we may 
lose Mr. Herbert Snowe’s assistance at the week- 
ly practicings in the school-house.” 

“ Practicings ! Oh dear. Miss Desmond, the 
singing-class is nothing now ; nothing to w hat it 
used to be. Mr. Mugw’orthy, he does wliat he 
can. But you know. Miss Desmond, what’s the 
use of the best intentions when you haA’e to con- 
tend with a voice like — there! Just like that, 
for all the world !” 

And Miss Turtle screw^ed up her mouth, and 
inclined her head toward the distant common, 
whence came at that moment the tremulous, 
long-drawn ba-a-a of some fleecy mother of the 
flock. 


Maud could not help laughing as she recog- 
nized the resemblance to Mr. Mugw'orthy’s pro- 
fessional utterance of the Amen. 

“Why, Miss Turtle,” she said, “I didn’t 
know you w'ere so satirical.” 

“Satirical! Oh pray don’t say that. Miss 
Desmond. I should be loth, indeed, to think 
so of myself. If I was satirical, it was quite un- 
awares, I assure you.” 

Miss Turtle fidgeted with her paper parcel, 
tightening its strings, and putting it into shape. 
Then she peeped into the basket, as if to assure 
herself that its contents were safe. She showed 
no symptoms of being about to resume her walk, 
and there was a mingled hesitation and eager- 
ness in her face every time she looked at Maud. 
These conflicting sentiments at length resolved 
themselves into a question that indirectly ap- 
proached the main point to which her curiosity 
was directed. 

“ Ahem ! And so, Miss Desmond, you don’t 
— ahem ! — you don’t find our revered vicar much 
broken by all he has gone through ?” 

Maud drew herself up, and looked full at the 
speaker. But Miss Turtle’s wishy-washy little 
countenance was so meek and meaningless that 
resentment seemed absurd. 

The governess’s straws hat was somew'hat on 
one side; and so was the long ragged feather 
that adorned it, as it had successively adorned 
a long series of hats, beginning Anno Domini — 
but no matter for the date. Miss Turtle and 
her black ostrich feather were coeval in the 
chronicles of Shipley ; for the good and sufficient 
reason that they had immigrated into Daneshire 
together. The long feather, wafted hither and 
thither by the capricious airs, and made lank and 
straight by the capricious show'ers of spring, 
drooped carelessly over the brim of the hat, and 
overshadow^ed Miss Turtle’s little snub nose, w ith 
a shabbily swaggering air ludicrously at variance 
with the expression of the face beneath it. 

“I told 3’ou that Mr. Levincourt w'as quite 
w’ell,” said Maud. 

“And you. Miss Desmond,” said Miss Tur- 
tle*, timidly putting out the tip of her cotton 
glove to touch Maud’s black dress, “you too 
have had a good deal of trouble. ” 

“ I have lost a dear relative and a true friend.” 

“To be sure. Oh dear me! Life is a shadow. 
How it flies ! Don’t you find it so. Miss Des- 
mond ? You have lost your aunt ; a lady of title 
too,” added Miss Turtle, with so comical an air 
of being shocked and surprised by this circum- 
stance above all, and of murmuring reproachfully 
to the great democrat. Death, “ How could you ? 
— a person so well connected, and habitually ad- 
dressed by mankind as ‘ my lady !’ ” that Maud’s 
sense of humor conquered her sadness, and she 
turned away her face lest Miss Turtle should be 
scandalized by the smile on it. 

Miss Turtle’s next w'ords, however, effectually 
sobered the mobile, dimpling mouth. 

“Yes; you have lost your aunt — and your 
uncle, if what we hear is true. ” 

IMaud’s heart beat fast, and she could not 
speak. Her ners^es quivered in the expectation 
of hearing Veronica’s name. It was not yet 
pronounced, however. Miss Turtle dropped her 
chin down on her breast, at the same time throw- 
ing back her shoulders stiffly, and infused a melt- 
ing tearfulness into her habitually subdued voice 


138 


VERONICA. 


as slie asked: “And have, you yet seen Mrs. 
riew, Miss Desmond ?” 

“Mrs. — Mrs. Plew? No. Poor old lady, 
how is she ?” 

“ She’s pretty well, thank you. Miss Desmond. 
As well as she ever is. She is quite a character 
of the olden time : don’t you think so, Miss Des- 
mond ?” 

“Well, I — I — I don’t know. She seems a 
very good old woman,” answered Maud, consid- 
erably at a loss what to say. 

“Of course, Miss Desmond, you have had 
great scholastic advantages. And I shouldn’t 
presume to — But as far as Pinnock goes, Miss 
Desmond, I should say that Mrs. Plew was quite 
the moral of a Roman matron ! ” 

Maud stared in unconcealed surprise. 

“I should indeed. Miss Desmond,” pursued 
the governess, still with the same tearful tender- 
ness and a kind of suppressed writhing of her 
sh'oulders. 

“ I have not read the Roman History in the 
original. But, if Pinnock may be relied on, I 
should say that she quite came up to my idea of 
the mother of the Gracchi,” which Miss Turtle 
pronounced “Gratchy.” 

Tliere was so long a pause, and Miss Turtle 
so jilainly showed that she expected Maud to 
speak, that the latter, although greatly bewil- 
dered, at length said, “I have always supposed 
IMrs. Plew to be a very kind, honest, good old 
woman. I can not say she ever struck me in 
the light of a Roman matron. Perhaps, on the 
whole, it is a better thing to be an English ma- 
tron ; or we, at least, may be excused for think- 
ing so. But the fact is, I never was very inti- 
mate with Mrs. Plew. It was my — ” 

Maud stopped, with a flushed face and trem- 
bling lip. She had been about to mention Ve- 
ronica, and Miss Turtle pounced on the oppor- 
tunity thus afforded. 

“ it was your cousin, or at least we all called 
her so. Miss Desmond, although awai-e that no tie 
of blood united you together ; it was IMiss Lev- 
incourt who was most intimate at the Plews’. 
Oh yes, indeed it was! But, of course, thal is 
all over. Higher spheres have other claims, 
have they not. Miss Desmond ? And that which 
the proud and haughty have rejected may be very 
precious to the humble and lonely, if it would but 
think so ; may it not. Miss Desmond ?” 

A light began to dawn in Maud’s mind, which 
illumined the oracular utterances of Miss Turtle. 
Through the mincing affectation of the little wo- 
man's speech and manner there pierced the tone 
of genuine emotion. Still Maud did not under- 
stand why Miss Turtle should have chosen to re- 
veal such emotion to her. 

Maud rose and held out her hand. “Good- 
by, Miss Turtle,” she said. “Please tell Kitty 
and Cissy that I hope to see them at the prac- 
ticing next Saturday.” 

“ Good-by, Miss Desmond. I hope you won’t 
take it amiss that I ventured to enter into con- 
versation with you.” 

“By no means! How can you imagine that 
I should do so ?” 

“Nor look upon it in the light of a liberty ?” 

“ Certainly not. Pray do not speak so !” 

“Thank you, Miss Desmond. You were al- 
ways so kind and affable!” There was the least 
possible stress laid on the personal pronoun, as j 


though Miss Turtle were mentally distinguishing 
Maud from’ some one who was not always kind 
and affable. “And you are just tbe same as 
ever, I’m sure. Miss Desmond. And — and — if 
I didn’t fear to offend you, which I wouldn’t do 
for the world — indeed I would not ! — I should 
like to — to — to ask — ” The governess made a 
long pause. Maud did not speak ; in fact she 
could not. She was too sure in her heart about 
whom Miss Turtle desired to ask. The latter 
remained silent for some minutes ; but, although 
timid in her manner, from years of repression 
and snubbing. Miss Turtle was not exquisitely 
sensitive, and she had that sort of mild obstinacy 
which frequently accompanies stupidity. 

Neither Maud’s silence, nor her pale, distressed 
face, availed therefore to turn Miss Turtle from 
the purpose she had had in view when she sat 
down on the wall beside the vicar’s ward. That 
pui-pose was to ascertain, if possible, what the 
truth of Veronica’s position really was. 

Of course Shipley-in-the-Wold had rung with 
gossip about her ; and latterly the gossip had re- 
ported — most wonderful to relate — something not 
for from the actual state of the case. 

“ I should like to ask,” proceeded Miss Turtle 
at length, “if it is true what we hear, that Miss 
Levincourt — that is, if all be as we have heard 
rumored, slie is not, of course. Miss Levincourt 
any longer — if she is in England again, and — and 
quite wealthy, and — I hope you are not offended. 
Miss Desmond !” 

“She is in England. She is a widow, and is 
left in possession of a considerable fortune.” 

“Oh dear me ! So it was true ?” 

Maud bowed, and was moving away. 

“One instant. Miss Desmond. I’m afraid 
you are angry with me for speaking. But, after 
all, it was natural that we should wish to know 
the truth ; wasn’t it now. Miss Desmond ?” 

Maud reflected that it was natural. Her con- 
science told her that the movement of sensitive 
pride which made her shrink from hearing Ve- 
ronica mentioned by indifferent persons, was for 
from being wholly a good movement. She con- 
strained herself to hold out her hand once more 
to Miss Turtle. The gratitude in the governess’s 
face rewarded her for the effort. 

“ Oh, thank you. Miss Desmond ! I should 
have been so sorry to hurt your feelings. Of 
course you will see Mr. Plew before long, and 
then I suppose you — you will tell him, won’t 
you ? Of course he will know, so intimate as he 
was with the family; and always speaks with 
the greatest respect, I’m sure. When he knows 
something certain about Miss Levincourt — that 
is — I’m so used to the name, you see — we hope, 
his mother and I hope — or, at least, she hopes — 
for of course I can’t presume to put myself for- 
ward — that he may get to be more comfortable 
and settled in his mind. We think him a good 
deal changed. Miss Desmond. His spirits are 
like a plummet of lead, to what they were, I do 
assure you. Good-by, Miss Desmond, and thank 
you very much.” 

Maud walked home across the paddock and 
up the long gravel path in the vicarage garden, 
with a feeling of heaviness at her heart. She 
was half inclined to hate Miss Turtle, Mrs. Plew, 
and all the people in Shipley. But she resisted 
the impulse of irritated temper. What was her 
I vexation compared with the sorrow and trouble 


VERONICA. 


139 


inflicted on others? If Veronica could but have 
known, if she could but have foreseen ! 

As she thus thought, she entered the house 
through the garden door, which stood open, 
yhe was going into the sitting-room, when she 
paused for a moment at the sound of voices 
within. 

“ Go in, go in. Miss Maudie,” said old Joanna, 
who happened to be in the hall. “You won’t 
disturb no one. It’s only that poor creetur, Mr. 
Flew, a-talking to the vicar.” 


CHAPTER III. 

MRS. FLEW. 

“An illustrious house. Sir!” the ^^car was 
saying, as Maud entered. “ A family renowned 
in the history of their country. My wife was a 
scion of a nobler stock than any of these bucolic 
squires and squiresses who patronized and looked 
down upon the vicar’s lady!” 

Mr. Plew was standing with his hat in one 
hand and his umbrella in the other, beside the 
fire-place, and opposite to the vicar’s chair. 
IMaud had already seen him several times ; but 
looking at him now, with the governess’s words 
ringing in her ears, she perceived that he was 
altered. There was the impress of care and suf- 
fering on his pale face. Mr. Plew was, on the 
whole, a rather ridiculous-looking little man. 
His insignificant features and light blue eyes 
were by no means formed to express tragic emo- 
tions. He had, too, a provincial twang in his 
speech, and his tongue had never acquired a bold 
and certain mastery over the letter h. Never- 
theless, more intrinsically ignoble individuals 
than Benjamin Plew have been placed in the 
onerous position of heroes both in fact and fiction. 

“ How do you do. Miss Desmond ?” said he. 

Maud gave him her hand. His was ungloved, 
and its touch was cold as ice. The vicar had 
abruptly ceased speaking when Maud came into 
the room. But after a short pause he resumed 
what he had been saying, with a rather superflu- 
ous show of not having been in the least discon- 
certed by her entrance. 

“The family of — of — the late baronet have 
shown themselves entirely willing to receife her 
Avith every respect. Sir Matthew called upon 
her, and so forth. But she will have no need of 
people of that stamp. The prince’s position is 
in all respects very different to that of these 
paiwenus. ” 

IMr. Plew stood bravely to listen, though Avith 
a dolorous visage. Maud AA’^as silent. The vic- 
ar’s tone pained her inexpressibly. It AV'as OA'er- 
bearing, triumphant, and yet someAvhat angiy ; 
the tone of a man Avho is contradicting his bet- 
ter self. 

“If,” said Mr. PIcav, Avithout raising his eyes 
from the ground — “if Miss Le — if Veronica is 
happy and contented, and put riglit Avith the 
Avorld, Ave shall all haA'e reason to be truly thank- 
ful. She must have gone through a great deal 
of suffering. ” 

She gone through a great deal of suffering !” 
cried the vicar, with a swift change of mood. 
“And Avhat do you suppose her suffering has 
been to compare with mine. Sir? We shall all 
have reason to be thankful ! JFe/ Understand 


that no one can associate himself Avith my feel- 
ings in this matter ; no one ! Who is it that can 
put his feelings in comparison with mine !” 

Maud glanced up quickly at Mr. PIcav, fear- • 
ing that he might resent this tone. But the sur- 
geon shoAV'ed neither surprise nor anger. He 
passed his hand once or tAvice across his bald 
forehead like a man in pain, but he said no AA ord. 
The vicar proceeded for some time in the same 
strain. Had any one ever suffered such a bloAv 
as he had suffered ? He, a gentleman by birth 
and breeding — a man of sensitive pride and un- 
blemished honor ! Had not his life, passed among 
stupid peasants and uncultivated country squires, 
been dreary enough all these years, but this mis- 
ery and disgrace must come to crush him utter- 
ly? Maud Avas trembling, and distressed be- 
yond measure. Mr. PIcav remained passive. 
Presently the vicar, Avho had been Avalking about 
the room, ceased speaking, and throAving him- 
self into a chair, he covered his eyes with his 
hands. 

Then IVIr. PIcav turned to Maud, and said, 
“Miss Desmond, I am glad you came in before 
I AA'ent aAV'ay, for I came chiefly to see you. I 
have a message to deliver to you from my mo- 
ther.” 

He spoke quite quietly, only his face betrayed 
the agitation and pain Avhich the A'icar’s tirade 
had caused him. 

“ A* message from Mrs. PIcav ? What is it ?” 
said Maud, trying to echo his steady tone. 

“ My mother hopes you Avill excuse the liberty 
she takes in asking you, but she is almost entire- 
ly unable to go out noAV. Very often she can’t 
get as far as the church for AA'eeks together. As 
she can not go to see you, Avill you come to see 
her. Miss Desmond? It Avill be a charitable 
action.” 

“Surely I Avill, if she Avishes it.” 

“She does Avish- it. Poor soul! she has not 
many pleasures, and makes, of course, no ncAv 
friends. The sight of your kind face Avould do 
her good.” 

“ When shall I come?” 

“ Would you drink tea Avith her this CA’cning? 
I Avill see you safe home.” 

“I don’t knoAv Avhether — ” IMaud AA-as begin- 
ning hesitatingly, Avhen the vicar interposed. 

“ Go, go, Maudie,” he said. “I see that you 
are hesitating on my account. But I Avould rath- 
er that you Avent, my child. I shall be busy this 
evening.” 

Thus urged, Maud consented, promising to be 
at Mr. PleAv’s cottage by six o’clock. And then 
the surgeon took his leave. Maud Avas surprised 
to see the A'icar shake hands Avith him, and bid 
him good-by, as unconcernedly as though no 
harsh or unpleasant Avord had passed his lips. 
But as she Avalked to Mr. PIcav’s cottage that 
evening with Joanna, Maud learned from the 
lips of the old servant that it Avas no ncAV thing 
for her guardian to be Avhat Joanna called “ crab- 
by” Avith ]\Ir. PIcav. 

“Lord bless you. Miss Maudie, don’t I knoAv, 
don’t I see it all, think ye ? I’m old enough to 
be your grandmother, !RIiss Maudie, my dear. 
And you mark my Avords, that little man, for all 
his soft ways, and bein’ in some respects but a 
poor creetur, he’s gone through a deal for the 
vicar. He has his OAvn troubles, has Mr. PIcav, 
and it isn’t for me to say any thing about thein. 


140 


VERONICA. 


But I do declare as I never see any mortal bear 
witli another as he bears with the vicar, except 
it was a woman, of course, you know. Miss 
Maudie. A woman ’ll do as much for them as 
she’s fond of. But to see his patience, and the 
way he’d come evening after evening, whenever 
his sick folk could spare him, and talk, or be 
talked to, and never say a word about hisself, 
but go on letting the vicar fancy as he was tlie 
worst used and hardest put upon mortal in the 
world — which the poor master he seemed to take 
a kind of pride in it, if you can make tliat out. 
Miss Maudie. Lord bless you, my dear, it was 
for all the world like a woman ! For a man in 
general won’t have the sense to pretend a bit, 
even if he loves you ever so !” 

Mrs. Blew received Maud with many demon- 
strations of gratification at her visit, and many 
apologies for having troubled her to come and 
spend a dull evening with a lonely old woman. 
Mrs. Flew was rather like her son in person, 
mild-eyed, fair, and small. She was somewhat 
of an invalid, and sat all day long, sewing or 
knitting, in her big chair, and casting an intelli- 
gent eye over the household operations of the 
little orphan from the work-house, who was her 
only servant. She wore a big cap, with a muslin 
frill framing her face all round, and a “front” 
of false hair, which resembled nothing so much, 
both in color and texture, as the outside fibres 
of a cocoa-nut. Maud could scarcely repress a 
smile as she looked at the meek figure before 
her, and recalled Miss Turtle’s grandiloquent 
comparisons. The surgeon was not able to be 
at home for tea. His portion of home-made 
cake, and a small pot of strawberr3'-jam, were 
put ready for him on a small round table, cov- 
ered with a snow-white cloth. The little servant 
was instructed to keep the kettle “on the boil,” 
so that when her master should return a cup of 
hot, fragrant tea should be prepared for him 
without delay. 

“There, ” said Mrs. Flew, contemplating these 
arrangements, “ that ’ll be all nice for Benjy. He 
likes strawberiy-jam better than any thing you 
could give him. I always have some in the 
house. ” 

IMaud felt that it was somehow right and char- 
acteristic that Mr. Flew should be fond of straw- 
berr^'-jam, although she would have been puz- 
zled to say why. Then the old woman sat down 
with a great web of worsted knitting in her hand, 
and began to talk. Her talk was all of her son. 
What “Benjy” said, and did, and thought, fur- 
nished an inexhaustible source of interest to her 
life. 

“Ah, I wish I’d known more of you in days 
past. Miss Desmond, love,” which Mrs. Flew in- 
variably pronounced hove. “Well, well, by- 
gones are by-gones, and talking mends nothing. ” 
jMrs. Flew paused, heaved a deep sigh, and pro- 
ceeded. 

“To-day Benjy went to the vicarage to ask 
you here, and, when he came back, I saw in his 
face that minute that he had been upset. ‘ Any 
thing wrong at Shipley Vicarage, Benjy ?’ I said. 

‘ No, mother, ’ says he. ‘ I’ll tell you by-and-by. ’ 
With that he went up stairs into his own room. 
I heard his step on the boards overhead ; and 
then all was as still as still, for better than an hour. 
After that he came down and stood, with his hat 
on ready to go out, at the door of the parlor. 


And he said, ‘ There’s good news for Mr. LeWn- 
court, mother.’ And then he told me — what I 
have no need to* tell you, love, for j’ou know it 
already. And as soon as he’d told it he went 
out. And do you know. Miss Desmond, that 
for all he kept his face in shadow, and spoke 
quite cheerful, I could see that he’d — he’d been 
shedding tears. He had indeed, love!” 

“Oh, Mrs. Flew!” 

“Ay, it is dreadful to think of a grown man 
crying, my dear. But it was so. Though I 
never set up to be a clever woman, there’s no 
one so sharp as me to see the truth about my 
son. If ever you’re a mother yourself, you’ll un- 
derstand that, love. Well, I sat and pondered 
after he was gone. And I thought to myself, 
‘ well now this one thing is certain ; she’s far 
and away out of his reach for evermore. And 
now, perhaps, that things have turned out so, 
that there’s no need for any one to fret and pine 
about what’s to become of her, it may be that 
Benjy will put his mind at rest, and pluck up a 
spirit, and think of doing what I’ve so long want- 
ed him to do.’” 

island knew not what to say. She felt ashamed 
for Veronica before this man’s mother, as she 
had not yet felt ashamed for her. At length she 
faltered out, “ What is it you wish your son to 
do, Mrs. Flew ?” 

“Why, to marry, my dear young lady ; I ain’t 
one of those mothers that wants their children to 
care for nobody but them. It isn’t natural nor 
right. If my Benjy could but have a good wife, 
to take care of him when I am gone, I should be 
quite happy. ” 

The recollection of IMiss Turtle came into 
Maud’s mind, and she said, impulsively (blush- 
ing violently the moment the words were out), 
“I saw Mrs. Meggitt’s governess this after- 
noon.” 

Mrs. Flew had put on her spectacles to see her 
knitting, and she glanced over them at Maud 
with her pale blue eyes, half surprised, half 
pleased. 

“To be sure! Miss Turtle. She’s a very 
good young woman, is Miss Turtle. I’m sure 
she has been very kind and attentive to*me, and 
it don’t make me the less grateful, because I see 
very well that all the kindness is not for my sake. 
I suppose she spoke to you of Benjy ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Ah, to be sure she would ! She’s very fond 
of Benjy, is Miss Turtle, poor thing. ” 

“Does — does Mr. Flew like her?” asked 
Maud, timidly. 

“Oh yes, Miss Desmond, love, he likes lier. 
He don’t do more than like her at present, I'm 
afraid. But that might come, if he would but 
make up his mind.” 

“Miss Turtle seems very fond of you, ma’am,” 
said Maud, involuntarily recalling the “Mother 
of the Gratchy.” 

“ Wh}% ^ do believe she likes me, poor little 
thing! Slie talks a bit of nonsense now and 
again about my being so noble-minded and de- 
voted to my son. And once she said, that if 
she was in my place she was sure that she could 
never have the sparkling virtue to give iq) his af- 
fections to another woman, be she ten times his 
wife. ” 

“ The — the what virtue ?’’ 

“Sparkling, I think she said. But my hear- 


' VERONICA. 


141 


ing is treacherous at times. But, la, my love, 
that’s only her flummery. She means no harm. 
And she’s good-tempered, and healthy, and in- 
dustrious, and — Look here. Miss Desmond, 
love,” continued the old woman, laying her with- 
ered hand on Maud’s arm, and lowering her 
voice mysteriously ; “you have heard Miss Tur- 
tle talk. Any one can see with half an eye how 
fond she is of Benjy. She makes no secret of 
it. Now, if, whenever you’ve a chance to speak 
to Benjy — I know he goes to the vicarage pretty 
well every day — if you would just say a word for 
poor Miss Turtle, and try to advise him like — ” 

“Oh, Mrs. Blew, how could I do such a thing ? 
I am not old enough, nor wise enough, to take 
the liberty of offering my advice to Mr. Blew, es- 
pecially on such a subject. ” 

‘ ‘ But I don’t want you to say it plain right 
out, you know. Just drop a word here and a 
word there, now and again, in favor of Miss 
Turtle. Won’t you, now ? Benjy thinks a deal 
of what you say. ” 

Thus the old woman prattled on. By-and-by 
Mr. Blew’s step was heard on the gravel path 
outside. And his mother hastily whispered to 
Maud a prayer that she would not say a word to 
‘ ‘ Benjy” about the confidence she had been mak- 
ing. Then the surgeon came in, and had his tea 
at the side-table. And they all sat and chatted 
softly in the twilight. It was such a peaceful 
scene ; the little parlor was so clean and fragrant 
with the smell of dried lavender ; the scanty, old- 
fashioned furniture shone with such a speckless 
polish ; the clear evening sky was seen through 
Avindow-panes as bright as crystal, and the little 
surgeon and his mother looked the embodiment 
of cozy domestic comfort. Hoav strange it Avas, 
Maud thought, to consider Mr. Blew in the light 
of an object of romantic attachment! Strange, 
too, to think of his being a victim to helpless 
love! He ate his strawberry-jam with as quiet 
a relish as though the beautiful Veronica LeA'in- 
court had never dazzled his eyes, or made his 
pulse beat quickly. Surely it Avould be good for 
him to have a kind little Avife to take care of 
him ! 

When she Avas Avalking home through the 
Shipley lanes Avith Mr. Blew, IMaud endeavored 
to lead the conversation on to the subject of 
Miss Turtle’s merits. Mr. Blew, IiOAveA-er, re- 
plied absently and monosyllabically to her shyly 
uttered remarks. At length, as they neared the 
vicarage, Mr. Blew stood still. He took off his 
hat so aS to let the eA’ening air blow on his fore- 
head, and looked up at the transparent sky Avhere- 
in a few stars twinkled faintly. 

“Miss Desmond,” he said, “I haA'e not had 
an opportunity of saying a Avord to you since this 
morning. I should not haA'e mentioned her to 
you had not the vicar told me that you Avent to 
see her in London. It Avas very good of you to 
see her. God bless you for it. Miss Desmond I ” 

This was so unexpected that Maud could find 
no Avord to say in rei)lA\ 

“ IIoAv AA'as she looking? Is she changed?” 

“Very little changed, I think; certainly not 
less beautiful.” 

“And did you sec— the— the— man she is go- 
ing to marry ?” 

“No.” 

“ Did she speak of him to you ? Look here. 
Miss Desmond, you need not be afraid to talk to 


me of Veronica freely and openly. I under- 
stand your kindness and delicacy. You think, 
perhaps, that it might pain me to hear certain 
things. But, indeed, to think that she Avill be 
happy gives me great comfort. I am not selfish. 
Miss Desmond.” 

“I think that you are most unselfish, most 
generous, and it only pains me very much to 
think of your goodness being unappreciated.” 

JMaud spoke Avith warmth, and a tear came 
into her eye. She Avas remembering the vicar’s 
harsh, unfeeling behavior in the morning. 

“Oh, you praise me a great deal too highly,” 
said Mr. BIoaa', looking at her Avith genuine sur- 
prise. “ The fact is that I always kncAv Veroni- 
ca to be far above me. I never had any real 
hope, though I — I — Sometimes she liked to 
talk to me, and I aa'us fool enough to fancy for a 
moment — But that Avas not her fault, you knoAV. 
She could not be held responsible for my vanity. 
When she Avent aAV'ay,” he pursued, in a Ioav 
A'oice, almost like one talking to himself, “I 
thought at first that I had got a death-blow. 
For Aveeks I believe I did not rightly knoAV Avhat 
I AA^as saying and doing. I suppose there Avas 
some kind of instinct in me that kept me from 
doing any thing Avild or outrageous enough to 
get me locked up for a madman. But at the 
Avorst, my grief Avas more for her than myself ; 
it Avas, as true as God’s in heaven ! I am not a 
fierce man by nature, but if I could have got 
hold of — of that villain, I Avould have killed him 
Avith no more compunction than you’d crush a 
viper. But any man that marries her and treats 
her Avell, there’s nothing I Avouldn’t do to serve 
him — nothing ! All love is over for me. I know 
my own shortcomings, and I blame no one. But 
she Avas the first and the last. I knoAv my poor 
mother Avants me to marry. But it can’t be. 
Miss Desmond. I’m sorry for her disappoint- 
ment, poor soul ! I try to be good to her. She 
has been a very good mother to me, bless her ! 
If it had been possible for Veronica to come 
back free, and to have held out her hand to 
me, I couldn’t have taken it. She could never 
be the same woman I loA'ed any more. But* 
neither can I love any other. I dare say you 
don’t understand the feeling. I can not explain 
it to myself. Only I know it is so, and must be 
so, for as long as I have to live.” Then sudden- 
ly breaking off, and looking penitently at Maud, 
he said, “Oh, forgive me. Miss Desmond! I 
boasted of not being selfish just noAv, and here I 
am Avearying you Avith talk about myself. I hope 
you’ll excuse it. The truth is, I have no one 
that I can speak to about her. I dare not say to 
the vicar what I have said to you. And of course 
I don’t put forAvard my trouble Avhen he has so 
much of his own to bear. I Avas led on to talk 
almost unaAvares. You listen so patiently and 
quietly. Here Ave are at the garden-gate. Shall 
I come up the pathway ? There is Joanna at the 
door,; Good-night, Miss Desmond.” 

IMaud’s eyes Avere so blun-ed Avith tears that 
she did not at first perceiA’e that old Joanna had 
hastened to the door in order to be the first to 
give her a letter which she now held up triumph- 
antly as Maud entered. 

“A letter. Miss Maudie*! One as you’ll be 
glad to have!” 

It Avas from Hugh. Blaud took it, and ran 
to her OAvn room to enjoy her treasure. 


142 


VERONICA. 


After a few fond lover’s words of greeting, the 
first that her eye lighted on were these: “I 
have had a long interview with Lady Gale.” 


CHAPTER IV, 

AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL. 

“I HAVE had a long interview with Lady 
Gale.” 

It w'as a minute or so before IMaud recollected 
Veronica’s announced intention of bestowing a 
marriage portion on her, and of speaking to 
Hugh on the subject. But Maud had warned 
her not to expect that Hugh would yield. And 
yet Veronica had persisted in her intention. It 
was, doubtless, in order to fulfill it that she had 
sought Hugli. The further perusal of her letter 
confirmed this supposition. Maud might, of 
course, have satisfied her mind at once as to the 
correctness of her guess ; but, instead of doing so, 
she had sat for a minute or two, letter in hand, 
vaguely wondering and supposing — a wayward- 
ness of mind that most people have occasionally 
experie.nced under similar circumstances. 

“ I told her that it could not be,” wrote Hugh ; 

‘ ‘ that I knew you had already answered for your- 
self, and that I must entirely approve and con- 
firm your answer. Was not that right, dearest? 
She tried, when her 'first attempt had failed, to 
take a different tone, and to tell me that it was 
right and just that you should have a portion of 
the wealth left by Sir John Gale. She even said 
a word about the duty of carrying out her late 
husband’s intentions ! Think of that, Maudie ! 
But I took the liberty of pointing out to her, 
that if that were her object, she must make over 
every farthing to you without loss of time, since 
it was clear that Sir John Gale had never in- 
tended that any portion of his wealth should be 
enjoyed by her. I don’t think she is used to 
such plain speaking, and she looked mightily 
astonished.” 

That was all in the letter relating to Veronica, 

• except a word at the end. “I forgot to say 
that her ladyship did me the honor to make me 
a confidence. She informed me that she w'as to 
be married to Prince Barletti almost immediate- 
ly. For obvious reasons the mai'riage would be 
quite quiet. I saw the said prince ; not an ill- 
looking fellow, although there is something queer 
about his eyes. Veronica told me that Sir Mat- 
thew Gale had consented to remain in town in 
order to give her away ! I had a strong impres- 
sion that she w'as telling me all this in order that 
it might be communicated to you, and by you to 
Mr. Levincourt. Oh, my sweet, pure Maudie, 
what a perfume of goodness seems to surround 
you! Only to think of you, after being with 
that w'oman, refreshes one’s very soul.” 

Maud ran down stairs, after reading her letter 
through, to communicate to the vicar that part 
of it Avhich related to his daughter. But Mr. 
Levincourt was not within. It was past nine 
o’clock, yet Joanna said that it was very likely 
her master would not be at home for another 
hour or more. 

“ Do you know wliere he is ?” asked IMaud. 

“ I don’t know for certain. Miss Maudie,” said 
the old woman, dryly ; “but I'd lay a wager he’s 
at Meggitt’s. He hasn't been there yet since 


you’ve come back. But, for better than three 
months before, he’s been there constant, evening 
after evening. They’re no fit company for such 
a gentleman as master, farmer folks like them. 

I w'onder what he can find in them ! But they 
flatter him and butter him up. And Mrs. Meg- 
gitt, she goes boasting all over Shipley how thick 
her and hers is with the vicar. Good Lord ! if 
men ben’t fools in some things!” 

“Hush, Joanna; you must not speak so. 
The vicar know's better than )'ou or I either 
where it is pi'oper and fit for him to go.” 

But although she thus rebuked the old serv- 
ant, Maud did not, in her heart, like this new 
intimacy. It W'as part of the general lowering 
she had already noticed in the vicar’s character. 

She sat down alone in the parlor to re-read 
her dear letter. There was but little news in 
it. Hugh was well ; was w'orking hard ; and al- 
though he had not yet succeeded in finding the 
necessary money for the purchase of the business 
in Daneshire, he by no means despaired of doing 
so. His mother sent her fond love to Maud, and 
missed her sadly. The remainder of the epistle 
was full of words of the fondest and warmest 
aft'ection. They w'ere very precious and inter- 
esting to Maud, but would scarcely be deemed 
so by the reader. 

It may as well be mentioned here that IMaud 
was in ignorance of Mr. Frost’s debt to Hugh. 
He had debated with himself whether he should 
or should not make her acquainted with it ; and 
he had decided in the negative, perceiving that 
it would be impossible to do so without reveal- 
ing his mother’s story, and that he conceived he 
had no right to do without her permission. 

Maud sat and read, and re-read her letter. 
And then she took out the little plain wooden 
desk she had used as a child, and set herself to 
begin an answer to it. More than half an hour 
passed thus. It was half past ten o’clock, and 
still no vicar ! 

Maud at last began to think that IMr. Levin- 
court might prefer not to find her sitting up on 
his return. She had an instinctive feeling that 
he would a little shrink from saying to her that 
he had been passing his evening at Farmer Meg- 
gitt’s. He had never yet, in speaking with her, 
alluded to the growth of his intimacy with the 
farmer’s family. With this feeling in her mind, 
she resolved to write out the Avords about Veron- 
ica’s marriage, stating that she copied them from 
Hugh’s letter, and to lay the paper on the table, 
so that the vicar could not fail to see it when he 
should come in. Just as she had finished her 
task he returned. 

“You up still, Maud!” said he. “Why did 
you not go to bed?” He spoke with a sharp, 
querulous tone, Aery unusual Avith him Avhen ad- 
dressing his Avard, and made no allusion as to 
Avhere he had been. Maud Avas glad that she 
had Avritten Avhat the vicar had to learn. She 
slipped the paper into his hand, kissed his fore- 
head, and ran quickly up to bed. 

The next morning the vicar Avas as bland as 
usual, perhaps a trifle more bland than he had 
been for a long time. He asked Maud hoAv she 
had passed the evening at IMr. PleAv’s, and seem- 
ed quite amused by her account of IMrs. PIcav’s 
anxiety that her son should marry. 

“That little ^Ii#s Turtle, hey? Ha, ha, ha ! 
Hoav absurd it seems to look upon PIcav in the 


VERONICA. U3 


light of an object of hopeless attachment ! There 
is an incongruity about it that is deliciously ri- 
diculous. ” 

“I think,” said Maud, rather gravely, “that 
IVIr. Plew well deserves to be loved. lie is very 
kind and unselfish.” 

“Oh yes, child. That of course. That is' 
all very true. There is a great deal of home- 
spun, simple goodness of heart about poor Plew. 
But that does not prevent his being extremely 
comic when considered in a romantic point of 
view. But you’re a wee bit matter-of-fact, Maud- 
ie. You don’t quite perceive the humor of the 
thing. Which of our modern writers is it who 
observes that women very rarely have a sense of 
humor? Well, why in the world don’t Plew 
marry little Miss Turtle? Upon my word I 
should say it would do admirably !” 

“I’m afraid — I think that Mr. Plew is not in 
love with Miss Turtle, Uncle Charles.” 

“My dear Maudie! How can you be so in- 
tensely — what shall I say ? — solemn ? The idea 
of a ‘ grande passion’ between a Plew and a 
Turtle is too funny !” 

“1 think. Uncle Charles,” said Maud, reso- 
lutely, and not without a thrill of indignation in 
her voice, “I do believe that, absurd as it may 
seem, Mr. Plew has felt a true and great passion ; 
that he feels it still ; and that he will never over- 
come it as long as he lives. ” 

For one brief instant the vicar’s face was cloud- 
ed over by a deep, dark frown — a frown not so 
much of anger as of pain. But almost imme- 
diately he laughed it off, stroking Maud’s bright 
hair as he had been used to do when she was a 
child, and saying, “Pooh, pooh, little Maudie! 
Little soft-hearted, silly Maudie thinks that be- 
cause she has a true lover all the rest of the 
world must be in love too ! Set your mind at 
rest, little Goldielocks. And — go whenever you 
can to that poor old woman. It will be but 
charitable. Don’t think of me. I have occupa- 
tions, and duties, and — besides, I must learn to 
do without your constant companionship, Maud- 
ie. I can not have you always with me. Don’t 
mope here on my account, my dear child. And 
to visit the sick and aged is an act, positivel}^, of 
Christian duty. ” 

Again IMaud had the painful perception of 
something hollow in all this ; and the sense of 
being ashamed of the perception. The suspicion 
would force itself on her mind that the vicar pur- 
posely shut his eyes to the truth of what she had 
said of Mr. Plew ; and, moreover, that in urging 
her not to stay at home on his account, her gui\jfd- 
ian was providing against her being a check on 
his full liberty to pass his own time how and with 
whom he pleased. IMr. Levincourt said no word 
about the contents of the written paper Maud 
had given him. And at the close of the above- 
recorded conversation he rose and took his hat, 
as though about to go out according to his cus- 
tom after breakfast. 

“ Uncle Charles!” cried Maud, in alow, plead- 
ing voice, “you have not said any thing — did you 
read the paper I gave you last night ?” 

“Yes, oh yes, I read it, thank you, my dear 
child. I — I was not wholly unprepared to hear 
that the marriage would take place so soon. In 
— my daughter’s letter to me — she said— justly 
enough — that there was no real reason for a very 
long delay.” 


Then the vicar sauntered out of the house, and 
down the long gravel-walk, with as unconcerned 
an air as he could assume. 

“ He seems not to care,” thought Maud, with 
sorrowful wonder. “ He seems to care so much 
less than he did about every thing. ” 

“Master was at Meggitt's last night, ]\Iiss 
Maudie,” said Joanna, as she cleared away the 
breakfast things. This was not her usual "task. 
Catherine, the younger maid, habitually per- 
formed it ; and, indeed, Joanna very seldom 
now left her own domain of the kitchen. But 
it seemed that on this occasion she had come uj) 
stairs purposely to say those words to Maud. 
“Yes, he were^" she repeated, doggedly, pro- 
voked at Maud’s silence, and changing the form 
of her affirmation as though she conceived em- 
phasis to be in an inverse ratio to grammar. 

“Well, Joanna?” 

“ Oh, very well, of course. Miss Maudie ! It’s 
all right enough, I dare say. Bless your sweet 
face!” added the old woman, with sudden com- 
punction at her own ill-humor, “ I’m pleased and 
thankful as you’ll have a good husband to take 
care of you, and a house of your own to go to, 
my dearie. It was real pretty of you to tell old 
Joanna all about it when you came back. ’Tis 
the best bit of news I’ve heard this many a long 
day.” 

Catherine coming into the room at this junc- 
ture (much surprised to see. herself forestalled in 
her duty), began with youthful indiscretion to 
announce that she had just seen Mrs. Meggitt at 
the “general shop and that Mrs. Meggitt was 
as high and saucy as high and saucy could be ; 
and that folks did say — She was, at this point, 
ignominiously cut short by Joanna, who demanded 
sternly what she meant by gossiping open-mouthed 
before her betters. She was further informed 
that some excuse might be made for her igno- 
rance, as not having had the advantage of having 
lived with “ county families !” not but what she 
might have picked up a little manners, serving 
as she did a real gentleman like the vicar, and a 
real, right-down, thorough-bred lady like IMiss 
Maudie! And was finally sent down stairs, 
somewhat indignant and very much astonished. 

Maud was pained and puzzled by all this. And 
her mind dwelt more and more on the change 
she observed in her guardian. There Avas only 
one person (always saving and excepting Hugh. 
But then Hugh Avas fiir aAvay. And, besides, her 
great endeavor Avas to make her letters to him 
cheerful, and not to add to his cares) — there Avas 
but one to AA^hom she could A enture to hint at this 
source of trouble. 

The friend in Avhom she could unhesitatingly 
confide Avas Mrs. SheardoAAm ; and Maud longed 
for an opportunity of talking Avith her. But 
here, again, things had become different during 
her more than tAvelve months’ absence from 
Shipley. The vicar had AvithdraAvn himself from 
the Slieardowns, as he had Avithdrawn himself 
from other friends and acquaintances. The cap- 
tain and his Avife still came to St. Gildas, but 
Joanna said it Avas nearly three months since 
they had set foot Avithin the vicarage ; and the 
master never Avent to LoAA’^ater. Maud had seen 
her kind friends at church. They had greeted 
her on leaving St. Gildas Avith all their old Avarmth 
of affection ; and Mrs. SheardoAvn had said some 
Avoi d about her coming to LoAvater so soon as the 


144 


VERONICA. 


vicar could spare her. But they had not been to 
the vicarage, nor had Maud thought it right to 
offer to leave her guardian alone so soon after 
her return. Now, however, she yearned so much 
for the sweetness of Nelly Sheardown’s womanly 
sympathy, and the support of Nelly Sheardown’s 
Avomanly sense, that she sent off a note to Lowa- 
ter House, asking what day she might go over 
there, as she longed to see and speak with its 
dear master and mistress. A reply came back 
as quickly as it was possible for it to come. This 
w’as the answer ; 

“ Dakling Maud, — Plow sweet of you not to 
mistrust us ! We have not been to see you, dear 
girl, but the wherefores (various) must be ex- 
plained when we meet. Come on Saturday and 
sleep. We will bring you back when we drive 
in to church the next day, if it needs must be so. 
Tom and Bobby send you their best (Bobby 
amends my phrase. He insists on very best) 
love. I^resent our regards to the vicar. 

“Ever, dear Maud, 

“Your loving friend, N. S.” 

This was on Monday. Maud easily obtained 
the vicar’s permission to accept IMrs. Shear- 
down’s invitation. 

“Oh, certainly,” he said. “ Go by all means. 
It would be hard to expect you to give up your 
friends and shai*e the loneliness of my life.” 

The fact Avas that the vicar’s life w'as not lone- 
ly. Maud, as she thought of the companions he 
chose, and the society he had voluntarily aban- 
doned, felt that a lonely life Avould have been 
better for her guardian than that which he led. 
However, she looked forward eagerly to her visit 
to Lowater. 

But before the appointed Saturday arrived an 
event happened which put every thing else out 
of Maud’s mind for a while. She had been out 
one morning, visiting some poor sick people in 
the village, and her way homeward lying in the 
neighborhood of Mrs. Plow’s cottage, she had 
called there, to have a chat wuth the old lady. 
It Avas rather later than she had intended Avhen 
she left Mrs. Plew’s ; and she hastened home, 
fearing to be late for the tAVO o’clock dinner. 
When she reached the vicarage, the house door 
stood ajar. That Avas no new thing. Maud en- 
tered quietly and looked into the dining-room. 
There Avas no one there, nor in the parlor. Her 
guardian had not yet come in, then. The house 
Avas A^ery silent. She called Joanna. No one 
ansAA'ered, and there Avas no sound of voices in 
the kitchen. ' Maud ran down stairs, and found 
the kitchen empty ; but through the lattice Avin- 
dow she saAv Joanna, Catherine, and Joe Doav- 
sett, the groom, apparently in eager conversa- 
tion. They Avere standing beside the stable door 
at some distance from the house. 

“Joanna,” called Maud. “Is it not dinner 
time ? Where is Mr. Levincourt ?” 

“Lord a mercy, there’s Miss Maudie!” cried 
Joanna, as excitedly as though the young girl’s 
apparition Avas of the most unexpected and tre- 
mendous nature. Then she hobbled quickly up 
to the kitchen door, Avhere Maud stood, folloAved 
by Catherine. 

“Is any thing the matter ?” asked Maud. 

“ Not a bit on it. Miss Maudie. Don’t ye be 
flustered. Only the master’s not coming home 
to dinner. He's gone to Shipley Magna.” 


“ To Shipley Magna !” 

“Yes: here’s Joe Dow’sett as ’ll tell you all 
about it. Joe, Joe, come here ! And Avho do 
you think, Miss Maudie, my dear, is at the 
Crown Inn there ?” 

“ At the Crown Inn ? What do you mean ?” 
» “ Why, Miss Veronica ! At least Miss Veron- 

ica as was. And her neAV husband.” 


CHAPTER V. 

PRINCE AND PRINCESS. 

At the CroAvn Inn in Shipley Magna there 
Avas intense excitement. Nothing like it had 
been knoAA-n there Avithin the memory of man, 
for, although the house boasted a tradition that 
a royal and gallant son of England had once 
passed a night beneath its roof, no one living 
in the old inn at the period of our story could 
remember that glorious occasion. Noav there 
occupied the best rooms a foreign prince and 
princess! And there AA'as the princess’s maid, 
and the prince’s valet, Avho Avere extremely supe- 
rior, and troublesome, and discontented. And 
there had arrived a pair of horses, and a gor- 
geous carriage, and a London coachman, Avho 
AA'as not quite so discontented as the maid and 
the valet, but fully as imposing and aristocratic 
in his OAvn line. And as if these circumstances 
Avere not sufficiently interesting and stiining, 
there Avas added to them the croAA’ning fact that 
the “princess” Avas a Daneshire lady, born and 
bred in the neighborhood, and that the scandal 
of her elopement — and she a clergyman’s daugh- 
ter ! — Avas yet fresh and green in the chronicles 
of Shipley Magna. What had they come for? 
The hunting season Avas over ; and the hunting 
was the only rational and legitimate reason Avhy 
a stranger should ever come to Shipley Magna 
at all. At least, so opined the united conclaves 
of stable-yai d and kitchen Avho sat in permanent 
judgment on the actions of their social supe- 
riors. 

“Mayhap she have come to see her father,” 
hazarded an apple-cheeked young scullery-maid, 
timidly. But this suggestion Avas scouted as 
highly improbable. Father, indeed ! What did 
such as her care for fathers ? She Avouldn’t ha’ 
gone off and left him the Avay she did if so be 
she’d hu’ had much feeling for her father. She’d 
a pretty good cheek to come back there at all 
after the Avay she’d disgraced herself. And this 
hene prince — if so be he were a prince — must 
feel pretty uncomfortable Avhen he thought about 
it. But to be sure he AA-as a I-talian, and so, 
much in the Avay of moral indignation couldn’t 
be expected from him. And then, you knoAv, 
her mother Avas a foreigner. Certainly ]Mrs.. 
Levincourt had never done nothing amiss, so far 
as the united conclaA'es could tell. But, you see, 
it come out in the daughter. Once a foreigner, 
ahvays a foreigner, you might depend upon that ! 

Nevertheless, in spite of the opinion of that 
critical and fallible pit audience that contem- 
plates the performance of the more or less gilt 
lieroes and heroines Avho strut and fret their 
hour on the stage of high life, a messenger Avas 
dispatched in a fly to Shipley-in-the-Wold, on 
the first morning after the arrival of the Prince 
and Princess de’ Barletti, and the messenger 


VERONICA. 


145 


was the bearer of a note addressed to the Rever- 
end Charles Levincourt, Shipley Vicarage. The 
motives which had induced Veronica to revisit 
Daneshire were not entirely clear to herself. It 
was a caprice, she said. And then she supposed 
that she ought to try to see her father. Unless 
she made the first advance, he probably would 
never see her more. Well, she would make the 
advance. That she felt the advance easier to 
make from her present vantage-ground of pros- 
perity she did not utter aloud. 

Then there was in Veronica’s heart an unap- 
peased longing to dazzle, to surprise, to over- 
whelm her old acquaintances wdth her new grand- 
eur. She even had a secret hope that such 
county magnates as Lady Alicia Renwick \vould 
receive her with the consideration due to a 
Princess de’ Barletti. Lastly in the catalogue 
of motives for her visit to Shipley Magna must 
be set down a desire for any change that prom- 
ised excitement. She had been married to Ce- 
sare five days, and was bored to death. As to 
Prince Cesare, he was willing to go wheresoever 
Veronica thought it good to go. He would fain 
have entered into some of the gayeties of the 
London season that was just beginning, and have 
recompensed himself for his enforced dullness 
during the first weary w'eeks of his stay in En- 
gland. But he yielded readily to his bride’s de- 
sire ; and, besides, he really had a strong feel- 
ing -that it w'ould be but decent and becoming 
on her part to present herself to her father. 

Veronica, Princess Cesare de’ Barletti, was ly- 
ing at full length on a broad squab sofa in the 
best sitting-room that the Crown could boast. 
Her husband sat opposite to her, half buried in 
an easy-chair, whence he rose occasionally to 
look out of the window, or to play with a small 
Spitz dog that lay curled up on a cushion on the 
broad window-sill. Veronica gave a quick, im- 
patient sigh, and turned uneasily. 

“Anima mia,” said Cesare. “What is the 
matter ?” 

“Nothing! Faugh! How stuffy the room 
is!” 

“Shall I open the window?” 

“Nonsense! Open the window with an east 
wind blowing over the wolds right into the room? 
You don’t know the Shipley climate as well as I 
do!” 

“How delicious it must be at Naples now!” 
observed Cesare, wistfully. 

“I hope I may never see Naples again! I 
hate it ! ” 

“ Oibb ! Never see Naples again ? You don’t 
mean it !” 

“ What a time that man is gone to Shipley !” 

“Is it far to your father’s house?” 

“I told you. Five English miles. It is no 
distance. I could have walked there and back 
in the time.” 

“ It is a pity, cara mia, that you did not take 
my advice and go yourself. I should have been 
delighted to accompany you. It would have 
been more becoming toward your father.” 

“No, Cesare; it is not a pity. And you do 
not understand.” 

“I can, in truth, see no reason why a daugh- 
ter should not pay her father the respect of go- 
ing to him in person. Especially after "Such a 
long absence.” 

“I tell you, simpleton, that papa would rath- 
K 


er himself have the option of coming here if he 
prefers it instead of my walking in to the vicar- 
age unexpectedly, and causing a fuss and an es- 
clandre, and — who knows,” she added, more 
gloomily, “whether he will choose to see me 
at all?” 

“ See you at all ! Why should he not? He 
— he will not be displeased at your marriage 
with me, will he ?” 

“No — no. I do not fancy he will be dis- 
pleased at that !” returned Veronica, with a half- 
compassionate glance at her bridegroom. In 
truth Cesare was very far from having any idea 
of the service his name could do to Veronica. 
He was a poor devil ; she a wealthy widow. 
Per Bacco ! How many of his countrymen 
would jump at such an alliance! Not to men- 
tion that the lady was a young and beautiful 
woman with whom he was passionately in love ! 

“Very well then, mio tesoro adorato, then I 
maintain that it behooved ns to go to your father. 
As to a fuss — why, of course, there would be 
some agreeable excitement in seeing you once 
more in your own home !” said Cesare, to whose 
imagination a “fuss” that involved no personal 
exertion on his own part was by Yio means a 
terrible prospect. After a moment’s silence, 
broken only by the ill-tempered “yap” of the 
sleepy little Spitz dog, whose ears he was pull- 
ing, Cesare resumed: “What did you say to 
your father, Veronica mia? You would not let 
me see the note. I wished to have added a line 
expressive of my respect and desire to see 
him.” 

“ That doesn’t matter. You can say all your 
pretty speeches viva voce.” 

The truth was that Veronica would have been 
most unwilling that Cesare should see her letter 
to her father. It was couched in terms more 
like those of an enemy tired of hostilities, and 
willing to make peace, than such as would have 
befitted a penitent and affectionate daughter. 
But it was not ill calculated to produce the ef- 
fect she desired on the vicar. She had kept well 
before him the facts of her princess-ship, of her 
wealth, and of the brilliant social position which 
(she was persuaded) was awaiting her. A prod- 
igal son, who should have returned in rags and 
tatters, and been barked at by the house-dog, 
would have had a much worse chance with Mr. 
Levincourt than one who should have appeared 
in such guise as to elicit the respectful bows of 
every lackey in his father’s hall. People have 
widely different conceptions of what is disgrace- 
ful;- Then, too, Veronica had clearly conveyed 
in her note that if her father would come to see 
her, he should be spared a “scene.” No exi- 
gent demands should be made on his emotions. 
A combination of circumstances favored the re- 
ception of her letter by the vicar. He was alone 
in his garden when the fly drove up to the gate. 
Maud was absent. There was not even a serv- 
ant’s eye upon him, under whose inspection he 
might have deemed it necessary to assume a rig- 
or and indignation he had ceased to feel. There 
was the carriage waiting to take him back at 
once if he would go. He felt that if he did not 
seize this opportunity, he might never see his 
daughter more. After scarcely a minute’s hesi- 
tation, he opened the house door, called to Jo- 
anna that he was going to Shipley Magna, and 
stepped into the vehicle. It chanced, as the 


146 


VERONICA. 


reader is aware, that liis servants knew as well 
as he did who it was that awaited him at Ship- 
ley Magna. Joe Dowsett had met his friend, 
the head hostler of the Crown Inn, at Sack’s 
farm, that morning, and the arrival of the prince 
and princess had been fully discussed between 
them. But of this the vicar w'as in happy ig- 
norance, as he was driven along the winding 
road across “the hills” to Shipley. 

“Here is our messenger returned !” exclaimed 
Barletti, suddenly, as from his post at the win- 
dow he perceived the fly jingling up the Higli 
Street. “ It is he ! I recognize the horse by his 
fatness. Sommi dei, is he fat, that animal ! And 
1 think I see some one inside the carriage. Yes 
— yes ! It is, it must be your father!” 

Veronica sprang from the sofa, and ran to- 
ward a door that led into the adjoining chamber. 

“Stay, dearest; that is not the way!” cried 
Cesare. “Come, here is the door of the corri- 
dor ; come, we will go doAvn and meet him to- 
gether. ” 

But that had been by no means Veronica’s in- 
tention. In the first agitation of learning her fa- 
ther’s approach she had started up with simply 
an instinctive, unreasoning impulse to run aw’ay. 
At Cesare’s words she strove to command her- 
self, and sank down again in a sitting posture on 
the sofa. 

“No — no — no, Cesare,” she said, in a low, 
breathless tone. “I — I was crazy to think of 
such a thing ! It would never do to meet papa 
in the inn -yard before all those people. He 
would not like it. Stay with me, Cesare.” 

She took his hand in hers, and held it with an 
almost convulsively tight grasp. Thus they wait- 
ed silently, hand in hand. Her emotion had in- 
fected Cesare, and he had turned quite pale. It 
was probably not more than three minutes from 
the moment of Cesare’s first seeing the fly that 
they waited thus. But it seemed to Veronica as 
though a long period had elapsed between that 
moment and the opening of the sitting-room 
door. 

“The vicar of Shipley, ” announced the prince’s 
English valet, who condescended to act on occa- 
sion as groom of the chambers. 

“Papa!” 

“ My dear child ! My dear Veronica !” 

It was over. The meeting looked forward to 
with such mingled feelings had taken place, al- 
most without a tear being shed. The vicar’s eyes 
were moistened a little. Veronica did not cry, 
but she was as pale as the false color on her 
cheeks would let her be, and she trembled, and 
her heart beat fast ; but she alone knew this, 
and she strove to hide it. She had put her 
arms round her father’s neck and kissed him. 
And he had held her for a moment in his em- 
brace. Then they sat down side by side on the 
sofa. And then they perceived, for the first 
time, that Prince Cesare de’ Barletti, who had 
retired to the window, was crying in a quite un- 
concealed manner, and noisily using a large white 
pocket-handkerchief, which filled the whole room 
with an odor as of a perfumer’s simp. 

“Cesare,” called Veronica, “come hither. 
Let me present 3 'ou to my father.” 

Cesare wiped his eyes, put the odoriferous 
handkerchief into his pocket, and advanced with | 
extended hands#to the vicar. He W'ould have 1 
embraced him, but he conceived that that would 1 


have been a solecism in English manners ; and 
Cesare flattered himself that although his knowl- 
edge of the language was as A’et imperfect, he 
had veiy happily acquired the outward bearing 
of an Englisliman. 

“ It is a moment I have long desired,” said he, 
shaking the vicar’s right hand between both his. 
“The father of my beloved wife may be assured 
of my truest respect and affection.” 

There was a real charm and grace in the way 
in which Cesare said these words. It was entire- 
ly free from awkwardness or constraint ; and ut- 
tered in his native Italian, the words themselves 
appeared thorough^ simple and natural. 

Mr. Levincourt was favorably impressed by 
his son-in-law at once. He warmly returned 
the grasp of Cesare’s hand, and said to his 
daughter, “Tell Prince Barletti that, although 
my Italian has grown rusty on my tongue, I 
fully understand what he saj's, and thank him 
for it.” , 

“ Oh, Cesare speaks a little English,” returned 
Veronica, smiling. She Avas growing more at 
her ease every moment. The reaction from her 
brief trepidation and depression sent her sjnrits 
up rapidly. She recovered herself sufficiently to 
observe her father’s face closel}', and to think, 
“Papa is really a very handsome man still, I 
wonder if Cesare expected to see a person of 
such distinguished appearance.” Then in the 
ne.xt instant she noticed that the vicar’s dress 
was decidedly less careful than of yore : and she 
perceived in his bearing — in the negligence of 
his attitude — some traces of that subtle, general 
deterioration which it had so pained Maud to dis- 
cover. But she was seeing him under a better 
aspect than any Maud had yet Avilnessed since 
her return to Shipley. The vicar Avas not so far 
changed from his former self as to be indifferent 
to the impression he Avas making on Prince Bar- 
letti, They all three sat and talked much as 
they might have done had Veronica parted from 
her father to go on a wedding -tour Avith her 
bridegroom, and Avas meeting him for the first 
time after a happy honeA’-moon. They sat and 
talked almost as though such a being as Sir John 
Gale had never crossed the threshold of ShipleA" 
vicarage. . In Cesare this came about naturall}'’ 
enough. But Veronica, despite her languid prin- 
cess air, AA'as ceaselessly on the Avatch to turn his 
indiscreet tongue from dangerous topics. 

And so things AA^ent on Avith delightful smooth- 
ness. The vicar, being pressed, consented to re- 
main and dine Avith his daughter and son-in-hiAv, 
and to be driven home by them in the evening. 
DoAvn stairs the united conclaA'es Avere greatly in- 
terested in this new act of the drama, and criti- 
cised the performers in it Avith considerable vi- 
A'acity. 


CHAPTER VI. 

HOME, SAVEET HOME ! 

“And hoAv long do you pur])ose remaining 
here?” asked the vicar, addressing his son-in- 
laAV, as they sat at table. “I presume this is 
merely on the Avay to some other place. Do you 
go northward? It is too early for the Lakes, 

I and still more .so for the Highlands.” 

1 Cesare looked at his Avife, 

1 “Well, hoAV long Ave remain Avill depend on 


VERONICA. 


147 


several things,” answered Veronica. “We w^ere 
not en route for any special destination. I did 
not know that Shipley Magna could be en route 
for any place. No ; we came down here to see 
you, papa.” 

“Yet you have had a carriage sent dow-n, vou 
say ?” 

“Ah, yes; an’ ’orses,” put in Cesare; “I-a, 
want-a, to guide-a. ” 

“Don’t be alarmed, papa. Cesare is not go- 
ing to drive us this evening. We have a pretty 
good coachman, I believe.” 

“Then you had some intention of making a 
stay here ?” 

“Well, yes, ^'suppose so. But really I don’t 
think I ever have what you would call an inten- 
tion. That suggests such a vigorous operation 
of the mind. We shall stay if it suits us. If 
not — not ; don’t you know ?” 

Veronica uttered these words with the most 
exaggerated assumption of languid fine-ladyism. 
The time had been when such an affectation on 
her part w'ould not have escaped some caustic 
reproof from the vicar’s tongue. As it was, he 
merely looked at her in silence. Cesare followed 
his glance, and shook his head compassionately. 
“Ah,” said he, in his own language, “she is 
not strong, our dearest Veronica. She has cer- 
tain moments so languid, so depressed.” 

The vicar was for a second uncertain wkether 
Barletti spoke ironically or in good faith. But 
there was no mistaking the simplicity of his face. 

“Is she not strong?” said the vicar. “She 
used to be A'ery healthy. ” 

“Oh, I am quite well, papa. Only I get so 
tired,” drawled out the princess. 

Her father looked at her again more attentive- 
ly. Her skin w'as so artificially colored that 
there was small indication of the real state of 
her health to be drawn from that. But the dark 
rings round her eyes w^ere natural. Her figure 
had not grown thinner, but her hands seemed 
wasted, and there was a slight puffy fullness 
about her cheeks and jaw, 

“ She does not look very strong,” said the vic- 
ar; “and — I have observed that she eats no- 
thing.” 

“No! Is it not true? I have told her so, 
have I not, mia cara? You are right. Signor 
A^icario ; she eats nothing. More Champagne ? 
Don’t take it. Who knoAvs what stuff it is made 
of?” 

“ Cesare, I beg you will not be absurd,” re- 
turned Veronica, with a frown, and an angry 
flush of her eyes, “It keeps me up. I require 
stimulants. Don’t you remember the doctor 
said I required stimulants?” 

“Apropos of doctors,” said the vicar, with an 
amused smile, “you have not asked after little 
Blew. ” 

“Oh, poor little PIcav! AVhat is he doing?” 
asked Veronica. She had subsided again into 
her nonchalant air, temporarily interrupted by 
the flash of temper, and asked after Mr. Flew 
with the tolerant condescension of a superior 
being, 

“ What -a is Ploo?” demanded the prince. 

The vicar explained. And, being cheered by 
a good dinner and a glass of A^ery fair sherry (he 
had prudently eschewed the CroAvn Champagne) 
into something as near jollity as he CA^er ap- 
proached — for the vicar Avas a man Avho could 


smile, but rarely laughed — he treated them to a 
burlesque account of Miss Turtle’s passion. 

“Hoav immensely comic!” said Veronica, 
sloAvly, She had reached such a point of prin- 
cess-ship that she could barely take the trouble 
to part her red lips in a smile at the expense of 
these loAver creatures. Nevertheless there Avas 
in her heart a movement of A^ery vulgar and 
plebeian jealousy. Jealousy ! Jealousy of Mr, 
PleAV ? Jealousy of poAver ; jealousy of admira- 
tion ; jealousy of the hold she had over this man ; 
jealousy, yes, jealousy of the possibility of the 
village surgeon comparing her to her disadA^an- 
tage Avith any dther Avoman, and giving to that 
other something that, Avith all his blind idolatry 
of old days, she felt he had never given to her — 
sincere and manly respect. She Avould not have 
him feel for any Avoman Avhat an honest man 
feels for his honest Avife. 

“I suppose,” she said, after a pause, “that 
poor little PleAv Avill marry her. ” 

“ Oh, I suppose so,” returned the vicar, care- 
lessly. “It Avould do very Avell. Maud thinks 
he Avill not; but that’s nonsense. PleAv is not 
A^ery enterprising or ardent, but if the lady Avill 
but perseA-ere he'll yield : not a doubt of it !” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Veronica, toying with her 
bracelet, and looking as though she Avere ineffa- 
bly weary of the Avhole subject. In that moment 
she was foreseeing a gleam of Avdshed-for excite- 
ment in Shipley. 

After dinner — Avhich had been expressly or- 
dered a couple of hours earlier than usual — they 
all droA'e along the Avinding turf-bordered road 
tOAvard Shipley-in-the-Wold. It Avas a clear 
spring ev^ening. The distant prospect melted 
aAvay into faint blues and grays, A shower had 
hung, bright drops on the budding hawthorn 
hedges. The air bleAv SAveet and fresh across 
the rolling Avoid. Not one of the three persons 
Avho occupied Prince Cesare Barletti’s handsome 
carriage AA^as specially perA’ious to the influences 
of such a scene and hour. But they all, from 
AvhatsoeA'er motive, kept silence for a time. Bar- 
letti enjoyed the smooth easy motion of the Avell- 
hung vehicle. But he thought the landscape 
around him very dull. And, besides, he was the 
victim of an unfulfilled ambition to mount up on 
the high box and drive. He Avas speculating on 
the chances of Veronica’s permitting him to do 
so as they drove back from the vicarage. But 
then, even if she consented, Avhat Avas to become 
of Dickinson, his man, who aa’us seated beside 
the coachman ? He could not be put into the 
carriage Avith his mistress, that was clear. To 
be sure the distance Avas not very great. He 
might — he might perhaps AV'alk back ! But even 
as this bold idea passed through Cesare’s mind 
he dismissed it, as knoAving it to appertain to 
the categoiy of day-dreams. Dickinson Avas a 
very oppressive personage to his master. His 
gravity, severity, and machine-like imperturba- 
bility kept poor Cesare in subjection. Not that 
Cesare had not a sufficient strain of the grand 
seigneur in him to have asserted his own Avill and 
pleasure, Avith perfect disregard to the opinion of 
any servant of his OAvn nation, but he relied on 
Dickinson to assist him in his endeavor to acquire 
the tone of English manners. 

His first rebuff’ from Dickinson had been in 
the matter of a pair of drab gaiters Avhich the 
prince had bought on his OAvn responsibility. 


148 


VERONICA. 


These he had put on to sally forth in at St. 
Leonard’s, whither he had gone with his bride 
immediately on his marriage; and in conjunction 
with a tartan neck-cloth fastened by a gold fox’s 
head with garnet eyes, they had given him, he 
flattered himself, the air of a distinguished mem- 
ber of the Jockey Club at the very least. Dick- 
inson’s disapproval of the gaiters was, however, 
so pronounced, that Cesare reluctantly aban- 
doned them. And from that hour his valet’s 
iron rule over his wardrobe was established. 

On these and such-like weighty matters was 
Prince Barletti pondering as he rolled along in 
his carriage. Veronica leaned Jback in an elab- 
orately easy attitude, and while apparently steeped 
in elegant languor, was keeping a sharp look-out 
in case her secret desire of meeting some old ac- 
quaintance on the road should chance to be ful- 
fllled. The vicar was busy with his own ])rivate 
thoughts and speculations. The road was quite 
deserted until they neared the village of Shipley. 
Then the noise of the passing carriage attracted 
one or two faces to the cottage windows, and a 
dog or two barked violently at the heels of the 
horses. Such of the denizens of Shipley as saw 
Prince Barletti’s equipage stared at it until it 
was out of sight. It was all so bright and showy, 
and brand-new. Very ditferent from the solid, 
well-preserved vehicles in which most of the 
neighboring gentry were seen to drive about the 
country. There was a great blazon of arms on 
the shining panels. The coachman’s livery was 
of outlandish gorgeousness, and the harness glit- 
■ tered with silver. A vivid recollection darted 
into Veronica’s mind, as the carriage dashed 
through the village street, of that moonlit night 
when the jingling old fly from the Crown Inn, 
which she and her father occupied, had drawn 
aside to let Dr. Begbie’s carriage pass, as they 
drove home from the dinner-party at Lowater 
House. 

“Who is that respectable signora?” asked 
Cesare of his wife, at the same time raising 
his hat and executing a bow with much suav- 
ity. 

“ Eh ? Where ? What respectable signora ?” 

“There — that rotund, blooming English ma- 
tron. What a freshness on her cheeks 1” 

It was Mrs. Meggitt to whom Barletti alluded. 
The worthy woman’s cheeks were indeed all 
aglow with excitemrent. She stood by the way- 
side, nodding and smiling to the vicar, who 
slightly — one might almost say furtively — re- 
turned her salute. From behind the ample 
shelter of Mrs. Meggitt’s shoulder appeared the 
pale, pinched countenance of Miss Turtle. Her 
eyes saw nothing but Veronica. Their wide, 
steady stare took in every detail of the beau- 
ty’s rich garments : the delicate, costly little 
bonnet sitting so lightly on a complicated mass 
of jetty coils and plaits ; the gle.am of a chain 
around her neck ; the perfection of her gray 
gloves ; the low, elaborate waves of hair on her 
forehead ; and be sure that Miss Turtle did not 
fail to observe that the princess was painted ! 

“ Cesare ! Per carita ! What are you doing ? 
Pray, be quiet!” exclaimed Veronica, quickly, 
as she saw her lord about to pull off his hat once 
more. 

“Ma come? Cosa c’e? Why may I not 
bow to the respectable matron?” 

“ Nonsense ; be quiet ! She is a farmer’s 


wife. And I must say, I never saw a more 
presumptuous manner of saluting her clergy- 
man. What has come to the woman, papa? 
She is nodding and grinning like a ridiculous 
old china image !” 

“She did not nod and grin at you^ Veronica,” 
returned the vicar, with unexpected heat, and in 
a flurried, quick way. “I have a great liking 
and — and — respect — a great respect — for Mrs. 
Meggitt. I have received kindness and com- 
fort from her and hers when I w'as deserted and 
alone. Yes, quite lonely and miserable. And 
let me tell you, that it would have done you no 
harm to return .her salute. If you expect Ship- 
ley people to ko-too to you, you are mistaken. 
Your husband, who was to the manner born, un- 
derstands how to play prince a great deal better 
than you have yet learned to act princess I” 

Veronica was too genuinely surprised to utter 
a w'ord. But silence was in keeping with the 
tone of disdainful nonchalance she had lately 
chosen to assume, and eked out by a slight 
raising of the brows, and a still slighter shrug 
of the shoulders, it was sufficiently expressive. 

Cesare did not understand all that had passed 
between the father and daughter, and indeed had 
paid but slight attention to it, being occupied 
with gazing after Mrs. Meggitt. He was de- 
lighted with the good lady’s appearance, as ap- 
proaghing more nearly than any thing he had 
yet seen to his ideal of the color, form, and size 
of a thorough-bred, average Englishwoman. 

He had not got over his fit of admiration when 
the carriage ariived at the corner of Bassett’s 
Lane, which, as the reader knows, was skirted 
on one side by the wall of the vicarage garden. 
The coachman pulled up his horses, and Dickin- 
son, hat in hand, looked down into the carriage 
for orders. 

“Which way is he to take, your Tghness?” 
demanded Dickinson. 

Suddenly it rushed upon Veronica that she 
could not bear to be driven up Bassett’s Lane 
to the back-door of the garden. She had felt no 
emotion, or scarcely any, so far, on revisiting 
her old home. But the events of a certain Feb- 
ruary gloaming were so indissolubly associated in 
her memory with that one special spot that she 
shuddered to approach it. The whole scene was 
instantly present to her mind — the chill murky 
sky, the heap of flint stones, the carter holding 
the trembling horse, and on the ground Joe Dow- 
sett, with that unconscious, scarlet-coated, mud- 
bespattered figure in his arms ! 

She sank back shivering into a comer of the 
carriage, and said, in a voice little louder than 
a whisper, “Not that way, papa!” The vicar 
partly understood her feeling. But he could not 
understand why that spot, and that alone, out 
of all the numerous places and persons connect- 
ed with the past that she had hitherto seen, 
should so move her. She herself could not have 
told why ; but it indubitably was so. 

Cesare had marked her changing face and 
voice. He leaned forward and took her hand. 
“Cara mia diletta,” he murmured, “you are 
chill ! This evening air is too sharp for you. 
I saw you shiver ! Did not your maid put a 
shawl into the carriage ? Let me wrap you more 
warmly.” 

Veronica accepted his assumption, and suffer- 
ed herself to be enfolded in the shawl. The vicar 


VERONICA. 


meanwhile explained to Dickinson the road which 
the coachman must follow to approach the vicar- 
age by the side of St. Gildas, 

“You will see a specimen of our ancient 
church architecture,” said Mr. Levincourt to 
his son-in-law, in labored and highly uncollo- 
quial Italian, 

Cesare professed himself much interested. 
But when his eyes lighted on the squat tower 
of the old church, and the bleak, barren grave- 
yard, he stared around him as though he had in 
some way missed the object he was bidden to 
look at, and as though that could not surely be 
the “specimen of ancient church architecture.” 

“Why, there is Maudie on the look-out for 
me,” said the vicar. “How surprised she will 
be ! And who is that with her ? I declare it is 
• — ^}’es, positively it is Mr. Flew !” 


CHAPTER VII. 

MRS. PLEW SPEAKS HER MIND. 

Maud’s visit to Lowater took place as ar- 
ranged. Only instead of remaining merely a 
day with the ISheai-downs she staid in their house 
a week. Mrs. Sheardown had strongly urged, 
almost insisted on, this. 

“You have not now the plea that you can not 
leave the vicar to be lonely,” she said. “The 
vicar has no lack of society and excitement al 
present. As for you, I don’t think you desire 
to share in either the society or the excitement. 
Do you think Hugh would like that you should ? 
Stay with us. I shall tell Hugh that I have tak- 
en good care of his treasure, and he will be grate- 
ful to me.” 

As to Veronica’s presence in Shipley Magna, 
Mrs. Sheardown did not trust herself to say very 
much on that score to Maud. She did say a few 
words quietly, but sternly, disapproving the pro- 
ceeding. And Maud was unable to gainsay her. 
But in speaking to her husband, Nelly Shear- 
down gave utterance to her disgust and indigna- 
tion quite vehemently. 

“Did you ever hear of such a thing, Tom? 
Did any one ever hear of such a thing ? The 
woman must have lost all sense of decency!” 

“Why, Nelly,” returned the captain, “have 
I not heard you say more than once that if that 
misguided girl were to return you would not 
turn your back on her, but w^ould hold out a 
helping hand to her in any way that you could? 
Have I heard you say that, or did I dream it ?” 

“You know that you have heard me say it. 
And I do not repent of having said it. But you 
are not speaking fairly. You know very well, 
Tom, that my ‘helping hand’ Avas to be con- 
tingent on a very different state of things from 
that which actually exists. If she had shown 
any penitence, any remorse for the misery she 
caused, any consideration for others, I Avould 
have done Avhat I could for her; more, I con- 
fess, for Maud’s sake and the vicar’s than her 
own. But to come back here under the present 
circumstances ; not letting even a sufficient time 
elapse to soften the memory of her disgrace; 
flaunting her ill-gotten riches and her contempt- 
ible husband in the face of every body who has 
known her from childhood — ” 

“ Contemptible husband ! Why, my dear lit- 


149 

tie Avife, you knoAv nothing about him at all 
events !” 

“Do I not knoAv the circumstances under 
Avhich his marriage Avas made ?” 

“ Certainly not.” 

‘ ‘ I knoAv, at least, so much of them as suf- 
fices to prove that he must be a man Avithout 
any sense of honor, or dignity, or even decency! 
That he is, in short, as I said — contemptible !” 

The captain had thought it necessary to en- 
deavor to stem his Avarm-hearted Avife’s vehe- 
mence Avith a little show of that judicial impar- 
tiality Avhich so becomes a man, and Avhich he 
is usually so ready to display for the edification 
of the Aveaker sex in cases that do not touch his 
OAvn passions or prejudices. But in his heart 
Captain Sheardown Avas little less shocked and 
disgusted at Veronica’s conduct than his Avife 
Avas, and he Avarmly concurred Avith her in de- 
siring to keep Maud as far as possible apart from 
the vicar’s daughter. There Avere other rea- 
sons, also, Avhy the Sheardowns considered the 
Aucarage to be no longer a pleasant or desirable 
home for Maud Desmond. But of these they 
did not speak to her fully. 

“Perhaps it may be all idle gossip and ru- 
mor,” said Captain SheardoAvn, half interroga- 
tively, to his Avife. 

‘‘‘‘Perhaps it may,” she returned, with an ex- 
pressive shake of the head. 

“ At all events, there is no need to vex Maud 
with Avhat may turn out to be all false, vulgar 
scandal. ” 

“ No need at all, dear. But it is not very easy 
to me to dissemble. Once or twice lately Maud 
has spoken Avith some anxiety of the vicar, and 
I assure you it has been on the tip of my tongue 
to tell her the report Ave had heard.” 

“Gulp it doAvn again, like a brave little avo- 
man.” 

MeanAvhile the reappearance of Veronica in 
her new character of Princess de’ Barletti Avas 
the theme of discussion and animadversion in 
half the houses in the county. Mrs. Begbie had 
nearly fainted Avhen she heard it. She had said 
to her maid, Avho had first conveyed the informa- 
tion to her, “No, Tomlins. I can not belieA’e 
you. I Avill not, I must not, think so evil of my 
OAvn sex.” When subsequently the atrocious 
fact had been confirmed, Mrs. Begbie had been 
throAvn into quite a Ioav, nervous state by it. The 
sight of her innocent Emmie, and the recollection 
that that pure scion of the united houses of Gaf- 
fer and De Wynkyn had been in the same room, 
had actually breathed the same air Avith the creat- 
xire^ Avas too much for her. But finally Mrs. 
Begbie had found strength to rouse herself, and 
to take a stand against the barefaced audacity 
of continental corruption, as she characterized 
the visit of the Prince and Princess de’ Barletti 
to the CroAvn Inn at Shipley Magna. Such, at 
least, Avas Mrs. Begbie’s OAvn account of the A’a- 
rious phases of feeling she had gone through. 
Lady Alicia RenAvick Avas very grim and sar- 
castic on the occasion. Disapproving Veronica’s 
proceeding quite as strongly as Mrs. Begbie dis- 
approved it, her ladyship could not resist the 
pleasure of metaphorically digging her sharp 
beak into the pulpy self-complacency of Miss 
Emma. 

“Ay,” she said, dryly. “ It’s a curious social 
fitet that yon brazen flirt, Avithout a penny to her 


150 


VERONICA. 


tocher, as we say in the north, should have got 
two husbands (for, ye know, that wretch Gale 
married her), one a baronet and the other a 
prince, no less — and the young fellow really and 
truly Avell born : the Barlettis come of an illus- 
trious line — that that good-for-nothing hussy, I 
say, should get two such husbands by nothing in 
the world but her handsome face, while so many 
of our virtuous young virgins can't manage to 
get married for the life of them. And dear 
knows it isn’t for want of energy in trying, as 
far as my observation goes.” 

“Lady Alicia,” said Mrs. Begbie, with dig- 
nity, “ no well brought-up girl would put forth 
the — the lures, for so I must call them, which I 
have seen exercised by that — creature! Men 
are unfortunately weak enough to be attracted 
by that sort of thing.” 

* “Oh, men are fools enough for any thing, 1 
grant you,” replied Lady Alicia, giving up the 
male sex en masse with the greatest liberality. 

“They tell me,” pursued Mrs. Begbie, who, 
despite her virtuous indignation, seemed unable 
to quit the discussion of Veronica’s altered for- 
tunes, “that this — person has brought down a 
carriage and horses — splendid horses! — and a 
suit of servants with her to the Crown Inn. And 
her dress is something incredible in its extrava- 
gance. She makes three toilets a day — ” 

“Four, mamma,” put in Miss Begbie. 

“ Emmie ! I beseech you not to enter into this 
topic. Indeed, I regret that it has ever been 
mentioned before you at all.” 

“Oh, I don’t think it will do Miss Emmie any 
harm,” said Lady Alicia, with an inscrutable 
face. 

“No, Lady Alicia. You are right. I feel 
obliged to you forjudging my child so correctly. 
But still it is a pity that the bloom of youthful 
freshness should be injured by a too early ac- 
quaintance with the wickedness of the world!” 

“And they say she paints awfully !” observed 
Miss Begbie, in whose mind the word “bloom” 
had conjured up by association this crowning 
iniquity of Veronica. 

Mrs. Begbie executed a quite gymnastic shud- 
der. 

“ It positively makes me ill to think of her !” 
said she. 

“H’m. I don’t remember that ye were so 
overcome when the girl first ran off, were you ? 
Ay? Well, my memory may be at fault. But 
I understand very well it is aggravating to peo- 
ple — especially to people with daughters — to see 
that sort of thing flourishing and prospering,” 

“Vice, Lady Alicia, never prospers in the 
long run !” 

“ Oh, of course not. To be sure not. We 
have high authority for that, Mrs. Begbie. But 
then ye see it’s often such a very long run.” 

The above conversation is a pretty fair speci- 
men of the light in which the Princess de’ Bar- 
letti’s appearance at Shipley Avas looked on by 
the Daneshire society. 

Could Veronica have overheard one morning’s 
chat in any dressing-room or boudoir whose in- 
mates’ favor or countenance she desired, she 
would have at once despaired of making good 
her footing as a member of the “ county” circles. 
It may seem strange that she had ever for a mo- 
ment conceived the hope that the gentry of the 
neighborhood would receive her. But she had 


an exaggerated idea of the power of money. 
And she thought that the bright refulgence of 
her new rank would dazzle the world from a too 
close inspection of old blots and spots on her fair 
fame. And then it had all been vague in her 
mind. There had perhaps been hardly any defi- 
nite expectation of Avhat would occur when she 
should be at Shipley. But she had had a gen- 
eral idea of aAvaking envy and admiration and 
astonishment ; of dashing past old acquaintances 
in a brilliant equipage; of being addressed as 
“your highness” within hearing of unpolished 
Daneshire persons devoid of a proper -sense of 
the distinction of classes, and who had habitual- 
ly spoken of her in her childish days as “the 
vicar’s little lass!” And. these things in pros- 
pect had appeared to her to sufiice. But after a 
day or two she became aware how strongly she 
desired to be visited and received by persons 
Avhose approval or non -approval made Fate in 
Daneshire society. She was entirely unnoticed 
except by one person. 

This solitary exception served but to empha- 
size more strongly the marked neglect of the rest. 
Lord George Segrave called on her. Lord 
George had taken Hammick Lodge for a term 
of years. He had never been down there at that 
time of year before. But his health Avouldn’t 
stand a London season ; getting old, you know, 
and that sort of thing. So, as he had to pay for 
the place, he had come down to the Lodge to 
jjass a month or so until it should be time to go 
to SchAvalbach. And he had heard that Prince 
Cesare and the princess — whom he had the hon- 
or of perfectly remembering as Miss Levincourt 
— Avere at the CroAvn. So he ,had called, and 
that sort of thing. And he should be uncom- 
monly charmed if the prince Avould come and 
dine Avith him and one or tAvo friends, any day 
that might suit him. And Cesare accepted the 
invitation Avith something like eagerness, and 
announced that he should drive himself over to 
Hammick Lodge very soon. This promise he 
kept, having his horses harnessed to a nonde- 
script vehicle, Avhich the landlord of the CroAvn 
called a dog-cart ; and sending the London 
coachman, Avho sat beside him, to the verge of 
apoplexy by his unprofessional and incompetent 
handling of the ribbons. The A’icar had pleaded 
his parish duties as a reason why he could not 
go very fi-equently to Shipley Magna. ]\Iaud 
Avas Avith the SheardoAvns. And besides, Hugh 
LockAvood, in his intervieAV Avith Veronica, had 
so plainly conveyed his determination to keep his 
future Avife apart from lier, that Veronica had 
chosen not to risk a refusal by asking Maud to 
come to her. They had met but for a few min- 
utes on the evening Avhen Veronica had driven 
her father back to the vicarage. Veronica had 
not alighted. She had looked at her old home 
across the drear little grave-yard, and had turned 
and gone back in her grand carriage. But on 
that same occasion she had seen Mr. Blew. 
There needed but a small share of feminine 
acuteness to read in the surgeon’s face the in- 
tense and painful emotions Avhich the sight of 
her awakened Avithin him. She Avas still para- 
mount over him. She could still play Avith idle, 
careless, capricious fingei's on his heart-strings. 
It Avas a pastime that she did not intend to deny 
herself. 

But Avhat she could not see, and had not no- 


VERONICA. 


ir>i 


bleness enough even to guess at, was the intense 
pity, the passion of sorrow over the tarnished 
brightness of her purity, that swelled her old 
lover’s heart almost to breaking. She had never 
possessed the qualities needful to inspire the best 
reverence that a man can give to a woman. And 
it may be that in the little surgeon’s inmost con- 
science there had ever been some unacknowledged 
sense of this. But he had looked upon her with 
such idolatrous admiration ; he had been so unself- 
ishly content to worship from a humble distance ; 
he had so associated her beauty and brightness 
with every thing that was bright and beautiful in 
his life, that her degradation had wounded him 
to the quick. She had never been to him as 
other mortals, who must strive and struggle with 
evil and w^eakness. lie had not even thought of 
her as of a woman fast clinging to some rock of 
truth in the great ocean of existence, and sup- 
plying her own feeblenois by its steady strength. 
She had been to his fancy a creature to whom it 
was simply natural and inevitable to be brilliant 
and stainless as the petal of a lih^ And now she 
was smirched and fallen. After the first parox- 
ysms of impotent rage against the man who had 
taken her away, almost the bitterest reflection of 
all was the reflection how base a bait had tempt- 
ed her. 

When her carriage stopped at the gate of St. 
Gildas’s church-yard, and he advanced, hat in 
hand, and touched — very slightly touched — her 
proffered hand, and stammered a few incoherent 
words of greeting, in his shy, awkward, unpol- 
ished manner, Veronica thought, “He is over- 
come at seeing me again, and seeing me in this 
pomp ! Poor little Plew ! He really is not a 
bad fellow ; and I sha^n’t forget the good turn he 
did me about forwarding my letter. ” Her grat- 
itude did not by any means go to the extent of 
relinquishing her power to torture his feelings. 
But the truth, could she have read it in his heart, 
was, that he was crushed by the humiliation of 
being ashamed for her. And yet he loved her 
still. A more perfect being would doubtless have 
ceased to love that which his moral sense told 
him ought to be utterly unlovable. But Mr. 
Plew was a very far from perfect being; and 
from the nature of the case, and the nature of 
the man, there was mingled with his love an al- 
most feminine passion of pity which rendered it 
indestructible. 

“ You used to have patients in Shipley Magna, 
jMr. Plew, ’’the “ princess” had said, graciously. 
“Whenever your professional duties bring you 
there, mind you come and see us !” 

But two days, three days, passed, and Mr. 
Plew did not appear at the Crown Inn. Veron- 
ica had, in her security that he would come, given 
orders that he should be admitted at any time. 
Still, he did not appear. Then came Lord 
George Segrave’s invitation to Cesare. Veron- 
ica told him by all means to go, and told herself 
that it was a relief to get rid of him for a day. 
Poor Cesare was very fond of her ; almost too 
fond of her. It became a bore to have his con- 
stant presence. But when he was gone, and she 
w'as left alone with no companion but her maid, 
and no resource but the inspection of her jewel- 
box, she began to feel depressed. 

“ I’m getting into a horrible habit of being 
low-spirited,” she thought. “ It is habit, I sup- , 
pose. I want keeping up. This leaden weight ! 


is intolerable. Bah ! I won’t stay in this odious 
hole ! I always hated it. I don’t know whether 
one always comes back to one’s old loves, but I 
do believe one returns unfailingly to one's old 
hates. I will go away. But where? Dio mio! 
Any where ! Back to town. But meanwhile I 
positively am not well. I ought to see some one. 
I'll send for little Plew!” 

IMiss Turtle happened to be spending the aft- 
ernoon with old jMrs. Plew, Avhen the Princess 
de’ Barletti’s pink, perfumed note was brought 
into the cottage by a servant from the Crown Inn. 
Mr. Plew was not at home. He was expected 
back in the course of an hour or so. Very good, 
the man said. He would put up his horse and 
gig in the village, and return in the course of an 
hour to see if the doctor (so JMr. Plew was al- 
ways styled in Shipley parlance) had come in. 
He had orders to wait and drive him back to 
Shipley Magna. ^Yas any thing the matter? 
Any one ill? Not that he knew, special. Tl;e 
lady as they called Barley-etty seemed a bit out 
o’ sorts. But he couldn’t say much about it. 
The moment the groom’s back was turned, the 
two women pounced upon the note. They felt 
it, they smelt it, they turned it this way and that. 

“V. B.,” said JMiss Turtle, deciphering the 
monogram. “ And a crown above. The paper’s 
for all the world like satin. And hoio it is per- 
fumed I” 

“Ah 1 It smells to me likS them yellow loz- 
engers in the surgery,” said JMrs. Plew, pushing 
the note away from her with a little dissatisfied 
gesture. 

“ What a bold handwriting !” exclaimed Miss 
Turtle. “ Quite the aristocrat. Oh, dear me! 
I suppose Mr. Benjamin will be taken up with 
high society now. ” 

The tip of the poor governess’s little nose be- 
came red, and her eyes filled with tears. JMrs. 
Plew grasped her wooden knitting-needles more 
tightly than was her wont, and shook her head 
with the tremulous movement of age. 

“If you could but have seen the carriage she 
was in,” whispered JMiss Turtle, plaintively. She 
was by nature and habit so humble-minded that 
her jealous comparison of herself with Veronica 
had only resulted in her crushing sense of the 
latter’s overwhelming superiority in all points. 

“ But I did describe it to you, didn’t I ? And 
the silver on the horses’ harness ? Mrs. JMeggitt 
thinks a deal of her spoons, but la! Mrs. Plew, 
I tell you Mrs. JMeggitt’s spoons would be but a 
drop in the ocean if you were to melt them down 
to ornament that harness. And then the bonnet 
she had on. And leaning back with such an el- 
egant kind of a loll against the cushions. She 
was painted,” said poor Miss Turtle, making a 
faint little protest on behalf of her own self-re- 
spect. She at least was never painted. But she 
added almost immediately, with a profound sigh. 
“ But I have been told they all do it in high life. ” 

Still old Mrs. Plew kept her lips closed, and 
her head shook tremulously. In a few minutes 
the surgeon came in. Miss Turtle looked at his 
mother as though expecting her to speak of the 
note from Shipley JMagna. But the old woman 
said not a word. 

“ There’s a — a— note for you, Mr. Benjamin,” 
said Miss Turtle, timidly ; and at the same in- 
stant his eye lighted on it as it lay on the table. 
He took it up quickly, and walked to the window 


152 


VERONICA. 


as though to get a better light as he read it, turn- 
ing his back on the two women. 

“Where is the messenger ?” he asked, looking 
round. “ There is mention here of a man and 
gig waiting to take me back. ” 

“The man said he’d be here again in an hour, 
Mr. Benjamin. We thought — that is, your mo- 
ther expected you back by then. ” 

“I must wait for him then, I suppose,” said 
Mr. Blew, pulling out his watch, and beginning 
to walk softly up and down the room. “It’s a 
— a — patient. The Princess Barletti, in fact. 
She is not very well, and wishes to see me. It 
really is very good of you to give my mother so 
much of your company. Miss Turtle. ” 

Then Mrs. Blew unclosed her lips and spake. 

“ Benjy, love, don’t you go.” 

“Mother!” 

“Benjy, darling, don’t you go.” 

“Not go to see a patient when I am sent for I” 

“Benjy, love, I don’t believe she’s ill a bit 
more than you are. Nor so bad either, if feel- 
ings could count. And if she is bad let her send 
for Doctor Gunnery from Danecester, and not 
for them that she’s treated so heartless, and 
cruel, and shameful.” 

Mr. Blew had turned ashy pale, and was stand- 
ing quite still, staring at his mother. The little 
governess sat with clasped hands and parted lips, 
glancing nervously from one to the other. She 
was dumfounderea at Mrs. Blew’s unexampled 
boldness and eloquence. The wooden needles 
clicked and rattled in the old woman’s trembling 
hands. A bright red spot burned on each with- 
ered cheek ; and she went on in a strained voice 
unlike her natural soft tones. 

“Shameful, and cruel, and heartless she’s 
treated one that she’s not worthy to tie his shoe- 
strings ! A painted, wanton thing, playing her 
airs to break an honest man’s heart ! A man 
that might have had a good loving wife, and good 
loving children at his knee but for her. Beauty ! 
Why there’s women in the world, common, plain- 
looking women, with common coarse clothes on 
their backs, that to my eyes seem as beautiful as 
the saints and angels beside her! She’s bad; 
bad, and wicked, and wanton! And a paint- 
ed—” 

She stopped suddenly with the opprobrious 
word on her lips. Her son, without uttering a 
syllable, had dropped into a chair and covered 
his face with his hands. The governess cow- 
ered, awe-stricken, and trembling like a fright- 
ened bird. The knitting fell from the old wo- 
man’s hands. She sat as still as though she had 
been turned to stone for a minute or so, looking 
at her son. Then all at once she got up, went to 
him, and put her hand on his bowed head. 

“Benjy,” she said, “my own dear boy, for- 
give your poor old mother ! And may God for- 
give her for saying a word to hurt the best son 
that ever mortal woman bore into this world ! 
I don’t know what came over me, Benjy. I 
couldn’t help it. ’Twas as if I fain must speak. 
I’ll not say another word, love; not another 
word. Oh, my boy, don’t be angry with your 
poor mother. I sha’n’t be here to trouble you 
long ! And — Benjy — ’twas only because I love 
you so, my own dear darling.” Mr. Blew re- 
moved one hand from his face, and put it out to 
take his mother’s. She raised it to her lips and 
kissed it. “Thank you, my boy,” she said, with 


pathetic humility. And then — with all the an- 
gry flush gone from her face, and the tears 
streaming down it — she feebly tottered out of the 
room. Miss Turtle rose and followed her to the 
door. There she turned, and said, in a quite 
placid, almost cheerful, tone. “You needn’t be 
anxious about your mother, Mr. Benjamin. I’ll 
stay with her, and look after her whilst you’re 
gone. Your mother’s used to me. And for me 
it’s a real pleasure to do any thing for her ; it 
is indeed !” 

“God bless you for your kindness. I shall 
always be grateful to you, and be your friend 
with all my heart — if you will let me be so,” an- 
swered the surgeon. 

Within a quarter of an hour he was on his 
road to Shipley Magna. 


CHABTER VlII. 

AN AWKWARD IDIOM. 

“ But, I assure you, I suffer unspeakably from 
nervous depression ! You don’t know how I sink 
down like a leaden weight dropped into water 
sometimes. It is the most dreadful feeling! 
And besides, I take scarcely any thing. A glass 
or two of Champagne at dinner is the only thing 
that keeps me up !” 

“It seems to me that the reaction you com- 
plain of feeling ought to be sufficient to convince 
you that even the small quantity of wine you 
take is doing you harm instead of good.” 

“Ah, bah! I don’t believe you understand 
the case.” 

Veronica threw herself back on her chair with 
the pettish air of a spoiled child. 

Mr. Blew sat opposite to her, very grave, very 
quiet. He had put aside all her gracious coquet- 
ries, and entered into her reason for sending for 
him in a manner so entirely unexpected by her 
that for some time she could not credit her 
senses, but kept awaiting the moment when he 
should go back to being the Mr. Blew of old 
days. At last, when she found that he persisted 
in his serious demeanor, she lost her temper, and 
showed that she had lost it. 

But not even this change of mood availed to 
shake Mr. Blew’s steadiness. And gradually a 
vague fear stole over her. He looked at her so 
earnestly, with something so like compassion in 
his eyes ! Good God, was she really very ill ? 
Did his practiced observation discern latent mal- 
ady of which she was herself unconscious ? Was 
the weariness and depression of soul from which 
she did in truth suffer but the precursor of bodi- 
ly disease, perhaps even of — ? She shuddered 
with a very unaffected terror, and her smiles, 
and archings of the brow, and haughty carvings 
of the lip, and pretty, false grimaces, dropped 
away from her face like a mask. 

“ Do you think I am ill?” she asked, with di-' 
lated eyes. 

“Do not you think so, since you sent for 
me ?” 

“Yes, yes ; but I mean very ill — seriously ill, 
you know ! You look so strange ! ” 

“ 1 do not think you are well, madam.” 

“What — is — it?” she asked, faintly. “Yon 
must tell me the truth. But there can’t be dan- 
ger. Don’t tell me if you think so ! It would 


VERONICA. 


153 


onW frighten me. And of course I know it’s 
all nonsense. And you will tell me the truth, 
won’t you ?” 

Her self-possession was all gone. The unrea- 
soning terror of disease and death, which she 
inherited from her mother, had taken hold upon 
her. 

The egotism which enabled her so effectually 
to resist the sorrows and sufferings of others, be- 
yond a mere transitory movement of dilettante 
sentiment, made her terribly, exquisitely sensitive 
to her own. 

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Mr. Flew, gently. 

“ There is no need.” 

“Why do you look so, then? And speak 
so ? I have never been ill since I was a child — 
not really ill. It would be so dreadful to be ill 
now !” 

The tears were absolutely in her eyes as she 
spoke. In the presence of a stranger she might 
have succeeded in commanding herself more, 
but with Mr. Flew she did not even attempt to 
do so. 

It pained him greatly to see her tears. 

“There is really no cause for your distress,” 
he said. “You are frightening yourself quite 
needlessly.” 

“You said I was not well,” she answered, in 
a tone of peevish reproach. 

“You have no ailment that a little care and 
common-sense will not cure. You do not live a 
healthy life. You do not take sufficient exer- 
cise. You were accustomed in your girlhood to 
walk, and to be out in the open air. There is 
something febrile and overstrained about you.” 

“I carit walk. You see that I am easily tired 
— that I want support. I have no appetite. I 
am not so strong as I was.” 

“ You will never be stronger unless you shake 
off the habits of inertness and languor that have 
crept over you. ” 

“ I am not languid when there is any thing to 
interest or excite me. But what am I to do 
when I feel bored to death ?” 

“ Boredom” was not a disease with which ]\Ir. 
Flew’s village practice had made him familiar. 

“If you were to get up at six o’clock, and 
take a walk before breakfast, I am sure you would 
feel the benefit of it,” said he, very simply. 

Veronica’s panic was passing away. A dis- 
order that could be alleviated by getting up and 
walking out at six o’clock in the morning was 
evidently, she conceived, not of an alarming na- 
ture. 

“My dear Mr. Flew,” she said, with a little 
faint smile, “you are accustomed to prescribe 
for Shipley constitutions. Now, Shipley people, 
among other charming qualities, are famous for 
robustness; if I were to say rude health, you 
would think I was malicious. As for me, such 
violent proceedings as you speak of would simply 
kill me. Can’t you give me something to — keep 
me up a little ? Some — some — what is the prop- 
er technicality? — some stimulants — isn’t that the 
word ?” 

“Fresh air is an excellent stimulant — the best 
I know.” 

Veronica looked at his candid, simple face 
searchingly. She looked once, and Avithdrew 
her eyes. Then she looked again, and the sec- 
ond time she waved her hand as though dismiss- 
ing something. 


“Let us talk no more of my nonsensi(?al ail- 
ments,” she said. “I ought to be ashamed of 
myself for having brought you here to listen to 
the recital of them. ” 

“No, Veronica — I beg pardon. No; do not 
say that. I hope you Avill send for me whenever 
you think I can be of use. It Avould be more to 
me than, perhaps, you can imagine, to knoAV 
that I AA^as of real use to you, and that you relied 
on me.” 

Her face brightened. This Avas more like the 
tone she had expected from her old adorer. Foor 
little FleAV ! Yes ; she really did like him A-erv 
much. After all, there Avas something touching 
in his humble Avorship. 

She made ansAver Avith a soft, liquid, beaming 
glance of her beautiful eyes: “My dear, good 
Mr. FleAV — Ave alAA^ays ivere good friends in the 
old days, Avere A\'e not? — I think I gaA'e you 
proof once upon a time that I relied on you. I 
have neA'er had an opportunity of saying to you 
hoAv grateful I AA'as, and am, and always shall be, 
for your forAvarding that letter!” 

She held out her jeAveled hand to him as she 
spoke, Avith a gesture of irresistible grace and 
spontaneity. Mr. FleAv Avas not in the least 
graceful. He took the slender Avhite hand for 
an instant, looked at it as though it Avere some 
frail, precious thing, Avhich a too rough touch 
might break or injure, and then gently let it go 
again. 

He liked to hear her speak so, to hear her al- 
lude to the “old days,” and acknoAvledge so 
candidly her obligation regarding that letter he 
had sent to Maud (the outer cover, Avith its feAv 
Avords addressed to himself, Avas treasured in a 
little ro£e-Avood box, AA’hich Avas the only reposi- 
tory, except the chest in the surgery containing 
poisons, that Mr. FIcav ever locked). It shoAved 
a heart still unspoiled, still capable of generous 
movements. Foor Mr. Flew ! 

Veronica suav the impression she had made. 
Without conscious and deliberate duplicity, but 
from sheer habit and instinct, she assumed the 
tone most of all adapted to Avin the surgeon’s ad- 
miration. He Avas not quite so meek and so 
Aveak, not quite so easily dazzled by tinsel glo- 
ries, as she had been Avont to think him. She 
had made a little mistake Avith her airs of “bonne 
princesse” and spoiled child. 

Noav she Avas all feeling, all candor, all ingen- 
uous confidence. She had suffered much, very 
much. She had too much pride to appeal to the 
sympathies of the envious vulgar. To strangers 
siie presented a front as cold and impassible as 
their OAvn. So feAv had enough nobility of nature 
to be exempt from love of detraction. Her rank ! 
Well, her husband Avas of her OAvn kindred. Her 
mother had been a Barletti. Tlfose Avho grudged 
her her social elevation did not knoAv that in ac- 
cepting it she Avas but assuming the rank of her 
ancestors. But all that Avas of trifling conse- 
quence to her. She had married Cesare because 
he Avas devoted to her, and because she Avas grate- 
ful and really — yes, really — attached to him. No 
one kneAV the real facts of her story. Those 
Avere betAveen herself and one Avho Avas gone for- 
ever. If she revealed them the Avorld Avould un- 
derstand and forgive much that it had judged 
harshly. No matter. She Avas incapable of 
stooping to make such an appeal to those Avhom 
her heart did not value. With a true friend it 


151 


VERONICA. 


was difierent. She had never yet spoken to any 
one as she was speaking then to Mr. Flew. 

He took his leave in a state of bewilderment, 
out of which only three clear convictions arose — 
namely, that Veronica Levincourt had been more 
unhappy than culpable, that her beauty was the 
least of her attractive and lovable qualities, and 
that few of her sex would be capable of her mag- 
nanimous candor. 

As he stood for an instant, hat in hand, in the 
doorway, Veronica resolved to put the crowning 
spell on her enchantments. 

“Do you know what I mean to do, Mr. Flew ?” 
said she, with a smile of mingled sweetness and 
melancholy. “I mean to drive over to-morrow 
afteraoon and see your good mother. She must 
not think I have forgotten her.” 

Mr. Flew almost staggered. If a reservoir of 
ice-cold water had been opened above his head 
he could scarcely have been for the moment more 
disconcerted. 

“Oh, no, no, you mustn’t!” he exclaimed, 
with as hasty an impulse of fright and apprehen- 
sion as though the Frincess de’ Barletti had been 
about to transport herself into his cottage that 
instant. 

“Mustn’t!” echoed Veronica, thinking he had 
misunderstood her. “ I must not do what?” 

“ I don’t mean ‘ must not,’ of course. And it 
is very good and kind of you to think of it. But, 
I think — I believe — I should advise — in fact, you 
had better not.” 

“Why?” demanded Veronica, more puzzled 
tlian offended by the unceremonious rejection of 
her proffered condescension. 

“Because — Well — my mother is a dear, 
good woman. No son ever had a better mother, 
and I love her and respect her with all my heart. 
But — she is old ; and old people are not easily 
])ersuaded. And she has some notions and prej- 
udices which can not be overcome ; and I should 
be sorry to treat them roughly. I would it were 
otherwise : but — I think you had better not come 
to see us.” 

Veronica understood it all now. 

“Foor dear old soul!” said she, with a com- 
passionate smile. “I did not know she had 
grown too feeble to see people.” 

“ She did not comprehend — she misunderstood 
my meaning about mother,” thought Mr. Flew, 
as he walked slowly and meditatively out of the 
inn -yard. “ Ferhaps it is all the better. It 
would only have hurt her to know the truth.” 

Meanwhile, the subject of his reflections was 
pondering with knit brows, flushed cheek, and 
tightly-closed lips, on the incredible and infuri- 
ating circumstance that “ that ignorant, low- 
born, idiotic old woman” should dare to refuse to 
receive the Frincess Cesare de’ Barletti ! 

When Cesare returned that evening from 
ITammick Lodge, and gave his wife an account 
of Lord George’s dinner-party, which he said 
had been exeeedingly pleasant, he appealed to 
her for enlightenment as to an English phrase 
which had puzzled him. 

“English!” said Veronica, conveying into her 
voice and manner a skillful mingling of insolence 
and indifference — for Mr. Flow’s revelation Iiad 
galled her unspeakably, and she was by no means 
in an amiable mood. “You don’t mean to say 
that you tried to speak English ?” 

“Yes, I tried!” answered Cesare, simply. 


“But Lorgiorgio speaks French pretty well, and 
so did some of the others. So I was not embar- 
rassed to make myself understood. And, do you 
know, signora mia, that I make progress in my 
English ! Fer Bacco, I shall soon be an accom- 
plished Cockani !” 

“An accomplished what? — Cockney? How 
ineffably absurd you are, Cesare!” 

“Tante grazie! You don’t spoil one with 
compliments ! But listen : what do they mean 
when they say that one wears a tight corset ?” 

“How can I guess what you have in your 
head ? Who says so ? I suppose that if any one 
says so, he means simply what the words con- 
vey.” 

“Niente! Not at all! There is another 
meaning. You shall judge. Tliere was a young 
man at dinner named Sno. I remembered that 
name — Signor Neve! What a comical patro- 
nymic ! Well, Signor Sno asked me if we had 
seen much of your friend Miss Desmond since 
we had been in this place. He spoke in French. 
And I told him no ; we had not had that pleas- 
ure, for she was visiting in the house of some 
friends. Then a man — a great hunter of tlie 
fox, Lorgiorgio told me — laughed, and said to 
Sno in English, ‘No, no. They took Miss Des- 
mond out of the way. They did not want her to 
have any thing to say to the princess. They are 
too’ — I can not remember the word, but I know 
it meant — ” 

“Strait-laced?” suggested Veronica, with 
flashing e3’es, and quickly-heaving bosom. 

“Ecco! Frecisely! And now what did he 
mean by saying that the friends in question were 
too tight-laced ?” 

. “He meant — He meant to be insolent, and 
odious, and insulting ! How could Lord George 
permit such audacious impertinence in your pres- 
ence?” 

“Eh?” exclaimed Cesare, greatly amazed. 
“I had no idea! I thought it was a jest! 
.Lorgiorgio called out to the man to take some 
wine and stop his mouth. The others did not 
laugh, it is true,” he added, reflectivel3% “And 
they looked at me oddly.” 

“I will not stay another day in this hateful, 
barbarous, boorish den!” cried Veronica. And 
then she burst into a passion of angry tears. 

“Diavolo!” muttered Cesare, staring at her 
in much consternation. “ Explain to me, cara 
mia, what it means exactly, this accursed tight- 
lacing !” 

“ I have told 3'ou enough,” returned Veronica, 
through her tears. “ Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, 
begin to tease me ! I can not bear it.” 

“ Listen, Veronica,” said Cesare, stroking 
down his mustache with a quick, lithe move- 
ment of the hand that was strangely suggestive 
of cruelty, “3-ou must answer me. Ladies do 
not understand these things. But if your red- 
faced chaser of the fox permitted himself an im- 
pertinence in my presence at the expense of m3' 
wife — he must receive a lesson in good manners. ” 

“ Cesare ! I hope 3'ou have no absurd notion 
in your head of making a scandal.” 

“ No ; I shall merel3' correct one.” 

“ Cesare ! Cesare ! you surely are not indulg- 
ing in any wild idea of — Oh, the thing is too 
ridiculous to be thought of. Entirely contraiy 
to our modern manners and customs — ” 

“ Giuro a Dio !” exclaimed her husband, seiz- 


VERONICA. 


loo 


ing her wrist, “don’t preach to me, but answer, 
do you hear ?” 

The sudden explosion of animal fury in his 
face and voice frightened her so thoroughly that 
she was for the moment incapable of obeying 
him. 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Cesare ! Don't look 
so ! You — you startle me. What is it you want ? 
Oh my poor head, how it throbs ! Wait an in- 
stant. Well — the foolish word means — means 
— I hardly know what I'm saying — it means 
strict, prudish, collet-monte. What that man 
was saying — I dare say he was not quite sober 
— was that the Sheardowns were too prudish and 
particular to like Maud to associate with vie. 
There, I have told you. And I’ll never for- 
give you, Cesare, for behaving in this way to 
me, never!” 

Cesare dropped her wrist. “Che, che!” he 
said. “Is that all? Diamine, it seems to me 
that the impertinence was to those others, not to 
you. Do voe want the visits of prudes and ‘ colli 
torti !’ And you cry for that? Women, women, 
who can understand you ?” 

Veronica gathered her draperies together and 
swept out of the room with her face buried in her 
handkerchief. She told her maid that she had 
a violent headache. And her miaid told Dickin- 
son that she was sure “monsieur and madame” 
had been having a dreadful quarrel ; which an- 
nouncement Mr. Dickinson received with the 
profoundly philosophical remark : “ Oh ! Well, 
you know, they’d have had to begin some time or 
other. ” 

And the prince lit a cigar, and leaned out of 
Avindow to smoke it, partly penitent and partly 
cross. And as he smoked he could not help 
thinking how very much pleasanter and jollier it 
had been at Ilammick Lodge than it was in the 
best sitting-room of the Crown ; and how utter- 
ly impossible it was to calculate on the capricious 
and unreasonable temper of his wife. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A RESOURCE. 

The evening of Lord George Segrave’s dinner- 
party was the first occasion on which Cesare de’ 
Harletti had given his Avife a glimpse of the brute 
fury that Avas latent under his gentle lazy de- 
meanor. They had had quarrels before : lovers’ 
quarrels ; in Avhich Cesare had protested against 
Veronica’s cruelty, and Veronica had played off 
her despotic airs, and they had both been vehe- 
ment, and demonstratiA'e, and childish. And the 
end of such quarrels had inA'ariably been to bring 
back Cesare humbly imploring pardon at the feet 
of the triumphant beauty. 

But neA'.er had his looks and tones been such 
as met her astonished eyes and ears on that mis- 
erable evening. 

.£\.nd there was no deep repentance aftei'AA’ard, 
no humble suing for pardon on his part. He ap- 
proached her the next morning Avith a smile and 
a kiss ! and Avhen she dreAv back in dumb resent- 
ment, he merely shrugged his shoulders, lit his 
cigar, and sauntered off into the stable-yard. 

In truth Cesare considered himself to be the 
injured person. His Avife, by her inconceivably 
absurd temper, had led him into an error, Avhich 


error had throAvn him into a rage. That Avas 
no trifle. Cesare Avas always particularly care- 
j fill not to fly into a passion if he could avoid it. 
j And his temper Avas so indolently mild in gen- 
j eral that he had no great difiiculty in avoiding 
frequent ebullitions of anger, 
j To an unaccustomed English eye, indeed, he 
might have seemed to be in paroxysms of fury 
j on many occasions Avhen his feelings were scarce- 
! ly stirred. He had the national characteristic 
of instantly translating slight and superficial emo- 
tions into very violent outAvard expression by 
means of voice, face, and gesture, and of thus 
Avorking off excitement at a cheap cost, if the 
phrase may pass. 

But Avhenever angry motion Avent beyond the 
slight and superficial stage Avith him, it Avas apt 
to become A'ery terribly intense indeed, and to 
assume the form of personal hatred, and a dead- 
ly desire of vengeance against the object of it. 

To talk to Cesare Barletti about hating a sin 
but pardoning a sinner, or to use any phrase in- 
volving a similar idea, Avould have appeared to 
him very much like uttering meaningless jargon. 

He never conceived or thought of amj thing in 
an abstract form. The unseen — the intangible — 
had no power OA’er his imagination. Hate a sin, 
indeed ! Why should he hate a sin ? Che, che ! 
But he could hate a sinner, or a saint either, if 
need Avere — Avith a relentless animosity of Avhich 
it Avould be difficult to exaggerate the bitterness. 

On the occasion in question, hoAvever, his 
anger had been merely eA'anescent. It Avas all 
an absurdity and a mistake. What if a man did 
express his opinion that such and such people 
Avere too rigid in their notions to desire to asso- 
ciate Avith Veronica? Well, so much the Avorse 
for such and such people, as he had said to his 
Avife. He had all his life heard about English 
prudery. There Avere even persons Avho object- 
ed to play cards and to go to the opera. Was 
he to distress himself about that? Veronica 
was Princess Cesare de’ Barletti. That Avas suf- 
ficient Avith persons Avho knew the Avorld. He 
Avould permit no man to insult the Princess Ce- 
sare de’ Barletti Avith impunity. 

Cesare’s quickness of perception Avas rapidly 
bringing him to the conA'iction that it Avas a far 
finer thing to be a “prince” in England than in 
Naples. Veronica, in bestoAving her Avealth and 
herself upon him, had not then made an entirely 
one-sided bargain. The consideration Avas not 
an unpleasant one. • 

He droA^e over to Ilammick Lodge more than 
once after his first visit to Lord George, and met 
several guests there, mostly bachelors, and, Avitii 
few exceptions, active patrons of that noble in- 
stitution — the Turf. Cesare found these gentle- 
men pleasant and unaffected ; entirely devoid of 
the insular stiffness Avhich he had kept continu- 
ally looking for since his arrival in Great Brit- 
ain, and had found up to the height of his ex- 
pectation in only one individual — the accom- 
plished Mr. Dickinson. 

The “turfy” gentlemen, on their part, found 
Barletti a charming felloAV, and Avere delighted 
to make his acquaintance. But the “ turfy” gen- 
tlemen were greatly disappointed at discovering 
one singular blemish in Barletti’s moral nature ; 
he steadily refused to “ speculate” on any com- 
ing event Avhatevei*, on the extraordinarily na'ive 
plea that he did not understand betting. 


156 


VERONICA. 


“My dear fellow,” said one tall, thin gentle- 
man, with a long, sharp chin and dull, fishy eyes, 
“ it’s as simple as A, B, C.” 

“Ah, gia!” returned the prince, with much 
suavity. “But A-a, B-a, C-a is not simple un- 
til you have learned it. ” 

Nevertheless, despite this deplorable lack of 
enterprise on Cesare’s part, he was very popular 
at Hammick Lodge. He played an uncommon- 
ly good game at ecarte, a very fair one at whist, 
and that he was no match for his host at billiards 
did not certainly operate against him in Lord 
George’s good graces. 

He had no formal reconciliation with his wife, 
but the coolness between them — which in fact 
had only existed on her side — passed away in a 
day or two. 

Cesare never knew how much it cost Veronica 
to condone his violent behavior, without an ex- 
pression of the deepest penitence on his part. 
And his ignorance of the sacrifice her haughty 
spirit was forced to make rendered that sacrifice, 
perhaps, a little less difficult than it would other- 
wise have been. At least there was in his mind 
no perception of what she deemed a bitter hu- 
miliation. 

In her loneliness — and she was very lonely ; 
but, as Cesare said, it was she who had desired 
to come to Shipley, and could he help it if the 
people would not call on her ? — she had recourse 
to the only human being on whose entire devo- 
tion she could rely. She took to writing letters 
to Mr. Flew. 

The letters at first were short; mere notes 
written with the excuse of asking his advice 
upon this or that trifling point of regimen. She 
would follow his advice. She had been think- 
ing over it, and she really believed that exercise 
would be good for her. Could he not come to 
see her ? Why had he not been ? The first note 
brought, not Mr. Flew, but a brief professional 
recapitulation of the points he had urged upon 
her consideration. In the second note, she asked 
again why he had not been to see her. Was it 
true, as had been whispered to her, that the at- 
tractions of a certain meek dove had succeeded 
in engrossing him altogether? No sooner had 
she dispatched this note than she wished to re- 
call it. She was ashamed of it. It was too fa- 
miliar — too condescending. 

The answer to it, however, contained no allu- 
sion to her hint ; neither denial nor confirmation. 
It merely stated that Air. Flew would willingly 
go over to Shipley Magna if he could be of real 
service to her ; but that, unless she had need of 
his presence, he must refrain from doing so. His 
mother was ill, and required all the care and at- 
tention he could give her. 

This reply of the surgeon reached Veronica 
on a rainy afternoon. She was dull and dispir- 
ited. Her husband was at Hammick. The 
quiet sorrow in the tone of Mr. Flow’s letter 
chimed in with Veronica’s mood at the moment 
of receiving it. A few slow tears trickled down 
her cheeks as she sat with her head leaning on 
her hand, looking down on the note. She imist 
have some sympathy ! She must dissipate some- 
what of the weight of sadness that oppressed her 
soul, by confiding to another human heart a few, 
at least, of her sorrows. 

She sat down to write to Mr. Flew. As she 
W'rote on, the half revelations she had intended 


became whole revelations. She found a relief 
in the depiction of her feelings — even in that of 
her faults. She would rather speak evil of her- 
self than not speak of herself at all. She poured 
forth her complaints and her disappointments 
without reserve. 

Here was one who would listen patiently, who 
would sympathize sincerely, who would feel her 
sorrows as his own. Here* was a heart that 
might be trusted to beat faithfully, let it ache as 
it would. His judgment might condemn her, 
but his feelings Avould take her part. He might 
preach, warn, reprove her even, but the reproof 
would have no sting. She coiild accept such re- 
proof, she could embrace it, for she would know 
that it came out of the depth of a great love. 
He would ask nothing, he would expect nothing, 
he would resent nothing. He could thrust him- 
self aside with a sublime magnanimity, and think 
only of her. 

So she sent the letter. 

‘ ‘ What do you write so often to that man for, 
Cara Veronica?” asked Cesare, unexpectedly, on 
the day following that on which her third letter 
was dispatched. 

“ So — so often ?” she stammered. The ques- 
tion took her by surprise, and she was startled 
by it. 

“ Yes ; it is often, I think. Two letters in 
one week. This lying on the table” — and Ce- 
sare took up a pink envelope sealed and directed 
— “is the second that I know of.'' 

“ It is kind of you not to recollect that I told 
you I had consulted Mr. Flew about my nervous 
headaches ! I write to him partly about them ; 
and, besides, he is one of my oldest and most 
intimate friends. I have knoAvn him from a 
child.” 

“Ah, Benissimo!” replied Cesare, carelessly. 
And the next minute he seemed to have forgot- 
ten the whole affair. 

But when, in the course of two more days, a 
reply arrived from Mr. Flew, Cesare, playing 
with the Spitz dog in one corner of the sofa, 
watched his Avife Avhen the letter Avas deliA'ered 
to her — Avatched her Avhile she opened it and be- 
gan to read it, and finally asked, “Is the letter 
from our good papa, il rev'erendissimo Signor 
Vicario ?” 

“ No ; it is from Mr. FleAV.” 

The instant directness of the answer seemed a 
little unexpected by him. He looked up at her 
for an instant, and then began to stroke the dog 
in a more caressing Avay than he had used be- 
fore. 

“Where are you going, dearest?” he asked, 
presently. 

“ To my OAvn room.” 

“To read vour letter in peace? May I see 
it?” 

“See it? See this letter?” 

“Yes; is it indiscreet?” he asked, shoAving 
his AAdiite teeth in a smile that flashed for a sec- 
ond and Avas gone. 

For a scarcely perceptible space of time Ve- 
ronica hesitated. Then she tossed him the let- 
ter disdainfully. 

“You are as curious as a baby!” she said. 

He took the letter and pored over it gravely. 
Then he brought it back to her and kissed her 
hand. “I can’t read it,” he said. “What a 
devil of a Avriting!” 


VERONICA. 


157 


Veronica had fully reckoned on this inability 
of Cesare’s. Between his imperfect knowledge 
of English and the cramped characters of Mr. 
Blew’s handwriting, that looked as though it 
were expressly invented and adopted for the pur- 
pose of scrawling tlie hieroglyphics familiar to 
our eyes in doctors’ prescriptions, she had been 
tolerably sure that Cesare would fail to glean 
much information from the letter, let it contain 
what it might. 

“ Why should Cesare have wanted to see that 
letter !” she asked herself when she was alone in 
her own room. “It must be from the mere 
suspicious dislike that any thing, however tri- 
fling, should pass between me and any one else 
with which he is not fully acquainted. I have 
noticed this trait in him lately — only lately. He 
used not to be so in Italy.” 

Veronica forgot that in Italy Cesare had been 
himself her sole possible confidant. 

When she had perused Mr. Plew’s letter she 
felt glad that Cesare had been unable to deci- 
pher it. There was no word in it which should 
have made him justly discontented with Mr. 
Blew ; but there were many words which would 
have roused his anger against his wife. 

“ The account of your unli^ippiness cuts me to 
the heart,” he wrote in one place. “I am not 
at all skillful with my pen, nor able to express 
what I feel. But I am so sure you are wrong 
in giving way to these morbid feelings; and yet 
I pity you so much for having them. I had 
hoped that you were at last happy and content- 
ed. God knows that there is nothing I would 
not give to see you so.” * 

And again : “I am solemnly certain that your 
first duty now is to try to gain your husband’s 
whole confidence and affection. Remember you 
chose him freely, and he loved you when there 
was no one else, whom you knew of, to love you !” 

And once more: “1 wish I was clever and 
could write like you. But I can not. I can 
only beg and beseech you to cast off gloomy and 
repining thoughts. There is one thing we can 
all do — try to be useful to others. Think of 
their sorrows more than your own. Even in my 
humble way I find that this soothes my pain of 
mind as nothing else soothes it. And you who 
are so rich, and so young, and so clever, might 
do a deal of good. You don’t know the suffer- 
ing there is in the world that a few copper coins 
would lighten. I feel your confidence in writing 
to me very much. But I wish for your sake 
that you -would have no secrets from your hus- 
band. You ask me to come and see you. I can 
not just at present. My mother is very ill ; and 
there is an epidemic fever in the parish. My 
life is not altogether a bed of roses. ” 

Within a week after the receipt of that letter 
Mrs. Blew was dead. And the Brince and Prin- 
cess de’ Barletti had gone away to London in 
great haste ; for a malignant form of typhus fe- 
ver was raging in Shipley Magna. 


CHAPTER X. 

A FRIENDLY TEA-DRINKING. 

It was near the end of a very sultry summer 
day in London — a day in the quite late summer. 
The people who were able to leave town next 


week pronounced that the season was over. The 
people whose business, or interest, or impecuni- 
osity obliged them to linger a while longer, de- 
clared that there was so much going on still they 
positively didn’t know' how to keep all their en- 
gagements. 

It was, however, near enough to the period 
styled by London tradesmen “ the fag end of the 
season” to bring it to pass that Miss Betsy Boyce 
had no dinner invitation for that day, and no 
invitation to any later assembly, and that she 
was consequently drinking tea at about half past 
seven o’clock in Mr. Lovegrove’s house in Bed- 
ford Square. 

Betsy Boyce w'as quite free from any vulgar 
prejudices on the score of fashionable or unfash- 
ionable hours. She would drink tea at seven 
o’clock, or dine at eight, or breakfast at any hour 
from nine a.m. to tw'o p.m., Avith perfectly ac- 
commodating good-humor. 

“ It matters very little what you call a meal,” 
she w'ould say. “If you eat between eight and 
nine o’clock at night, and like to call that din- 
ner, I’m quite content. If you have your real 
solid dinner at two or three, and your old-fash- 
ioned tea at five or six, and like to call thtit 
lunch, or kettle-drum, or any thing else, I’m 
equally content. When one lives in the Avorld 
one must do as the world does in those matters. 
I have heard papa say that when he was at Vien- 
na, and knew the old Brince Metternich, he has 
seen him often at a grand banquet, playing with 
a plateful of brown bread-and-butter, and tasting 
nothing else. Well, he ate his wholesome food 
at a wholesome hour, of course. But he never 
thought of changing people’s manners and cus- 
toms. No more do I.” 

Something of this kind she had said in answer 
to Mrs. Lovegrove’s ostentatiously humble apol- 
ogy for inviting her to tea at seven o’clock. 

“It is not,” said Mrs. Lovegrove, Avith a kind 
of A'irtuous, self-denying severity that Avould have 
exasperated any one less genuinely tolerant and 
good-natured than Betsy Boyce — “it is not that 
I do not understand the usages of the circles in 
Avhich you habitually move. It would be strange, 
bred uj) as I Avas at our place in the country, 
among the elite of our country society — you 
Avon’t mind my saying that country society is, 
as a general rule, more exclusive and more 
rigid on the score of birth than the mixed 
and eA'er-A'aiying circles of the metropolis? — it 
Avould be strange if I did not understand those 
usages. ” 

“To be' sure,” said IMiss Boyce, pleasantly. 
“What good cake this is ! Thanks ; I will have 
a piece more of it.” 

“But when I married Mr. LoA’egrove I put 
all that aside at once and forever. 1 looked my 
position in the fiice, and accepted all its condi- 
tions.” 

“And a A'ery comfortable position it is, too, 
Mrs. Lovegrove. And excessively delighted a 
good many ladies of my acquaintance Avould be 
to jump into such another.” 

It Avill be perceived that the acquaintance be- 
tAveen Mrs. Lovegrove and Miss Boyce, begun in 
Mrs. Frost’s draAving-room, had advanced tOAvard 
something like intimacy. 

Betsy Boyce Avas, as she herself declared, em- 
inently a social being. She Avas just as cheerful 
and content in the solicitor’s house in Bedford 


158 


VERONICA. 


Square as at my lord duke’s in Carlton Gardens. 
And while she regaled the lawyer’s wife with 
stories of the Olympian feasts she shared with 
the gods and goddesses, whose mythology (care- 
fully edited with a view to its meeting the public 
eye) is contained in Sir Bernard Burke’s red vol- 
umes, she never offended her hosts by appearing 
to despise their earthlier hospitality. 

Mr. Lovegrove considered Miss Boyce to pos- 
sess extraordinary s])irits and an immense fund 
of anecdote. Mrs. Lovegrove said she had a 
pensive pleasure in her conversation, as it remind- 
ed her of the old times passed at her papa’s place 
in the country. Augustus asked her serious opin- 
ion as to the spread of High-Church doctrine 
among the aristocracy, and was it true that a cer- 
tain illustrious person Avas going over to Rome ? 
Altogether, she Avas a general favorite Avitli the 
Avhole family. 

One frequent topic of her conversations Avitli 
^Irs. Lovegrove Avas the lamentable state of 
affairs in the household at BaySAvater, as she 
designated Mr. Frost’s residence. Things Avere 
going on there from bad to AA'orse; that is, be- 
tAveen husband and Avife, she meant. Georgina 
Avas an old friend of hers, but she must sa}^ 
Georgina Avas to blame. She Avas so indifferent 
to Mr. Frost’s comfort, so neglectful of his home, 
so careless to please him, and so indifferent about 
displeasing him. She on her side complained 
of her husband’s meanness and parsimony. He 
grudged her this, and declined to give her that. 
Which, said Miss Boyce, AA^as certainly odd in a 
man Avho had ahvays been so lavishly indulgent 
a husband. 

“ Perhaps he has at last been able to see AA'hat 
a fool that Avoman has been making of herself by 
her extraA'agance, and is beginning to turn over 
a neAA^ leaf. Let us hope so ! Let us, at least, 
try to hope so !” said JNIrs. Lovegrove, Avith all 
the ferA'or of charity. 

“Georgir.a tells me,” said Miss Boyce, “that 
there is at times something so strange about her 
husband, that he seems scarcely in his right mind. 
Something is preying on him, I fancy. It isn’t 
business troubles, I suppose, eh?” It Avas for- 
tunate for her acquaintances that Betsy Boyce 
Avas good-natured, for she Avas rarely discreet, 
and not a little curious. 

“ What business troubles Mr. Frost may have 
on his private account I am unable to say,” re- 
plied Mrs. LoA’egrove. “But as to Frost and 
Lovegrove, there is no cause for anxiety about 
them ; of that you may be quite assured.” 

“Ah, then I dare say it is mostly, if not en- 
tirely, Georgina’s fault. He is desperately fond 
of her, and she is as hard and cold to him as a 
block of ice.” 

“I consider Mr. Frost’s infatuated Aveakness 
for his wife to be positively culpable ! But Avhat. 
alas ! can one expect from a man totally devoid 
of religious principles ?” 

In order to aA'ert the stream of IMrs. LoA'e- 
grove’s indignation from Sidney Frost — for Avhom 
the kindly old maid had a real liking — Miss Boyce 
changed the subject of discourse. 

“Ah, dear me!” she exclaimed, fanning hei*- 
self, “it is a queer AA’orld! Talk of book:^ ! I 
knoAV much stranger stories than ever I saAv in a 
book yet. There’s that Princess de’ Barletti, for 
instance. What a career hers has been 1 ” 

“ Oh, do tell me, Miss Boyce, is she received 


in the highest society ? I trust not, for the credit 
of our aristocracy.” 

“ H’m ! Well, I don’t knoAv that one more or 
less Avould much affect the credit of our aristoc- 
racy.” 

“Eh?” 

“ HoAveA'er, that’s neither here nor there. I 
belieA^e the fact is she is not much received. She 
might have been taken up at one time by a cer- 
tain set. But she is deA*oured by ambition. She 
Avanted to be as great a lady as the greatest, and 
to play princess ; and that wouldn’t do. ” 

“Ambition indeed ! pretty ambition !” 

“Yes; pretty ambition. But yet — it seems 
a strange thing to say ; but I am not sure there 
is not a grain of peiwerted good in it.” 

‘ ‘ Good ? Hoav do you mean ?” 

“ AA’ell, I — I think a Avoman Avho would have 
been doAvnright, frankly bad and unscrupidous, 
might have had a better chance. ” 

“My dear Miss Boyce !” 

“Yes; I know it sounds A'ery horrible. But 
AA’hat I mean is this : this young AA’oman can’t be 
contented Avith the society of flashy folks of 
doubtful reputation. She might have got that, 
having money and beauty, and a certain notori- 
ety. But — you may call it pride, or ambition, 
or AvhateA'er 3^11 like — the fact remains that she 
knoAvs there is something higher and better than 
that sort of thing, and that she aspires to it. She 
can’t be at peace Avithout the good opinion of per- 
sons she can respect, and — she Avill iieA’er get it.” 

“ I should think not.” 

“She Avill neA’er ^et it, because she has not 
strength to make any real sacrifice of her vanity 
and selfishness. And 3'et I believe she is eating 
her heart out with misery and mortification in 
the midst of all that she paid such a terrible 
price to gain ! ” 

,Mrs. Lovegrove stared at the speaker in sur- 
prise. She had never seen such a grave expres- 
sion on Betsy Bo 3 ’ce’s round, rubicund visage. 
The brisk, lively old lady had gradually fallen 
into a serious tone as she spoke, and Avhen she 
ceased there Avas something like a tear in her e3'e. 

Sarah LoA^egrove’s heart, although it did not 
beat Avith remarkable warmth, Avas better than 
her creed. But she repressed a Avomanly move- 
ment of pity by Avay of asserting the stern purity 
of her principles, and replied, Avith elongated up- 
per lip and incisive brevity, “ That is the natural 
result toAA’hich such iniquitA- leads. Miss Boyce.” 

“Dear me,” said Miss Boyce, “I’ve been 
making quite a preachment ! But it is not al- 
together m3’ OAvn Avisdom that I have been ut- 
tering. The fact is that I Avas yesterday Avith 
that sAveet creature, Maud Desmond, and she 
talked to me a little about the vicar’s daughter ; 
and AAdien she Avas out of the room, Mrs. Shear- 
doAvn talked of her a good deal, and, betAveen 
the tAvo, I got a pretty clear notion of the state 
of the case. ” 

“You don’t mean to say that Miss Desmond 
visits her ?” 

“No, no; their lives are apart altogether. 
But I do believe that if Veronica needed any 
thing — if she Avere sick, for instance — Maud 
Avould go to her directR.” 

“Would Ml*. LockAvood alloAV that?” asked 
Mrs. Lovegrove, Avith something like a sneer. 

“Yes, I think he AA’ould. He’s not the good 
felloAv I take him for, if he Avould oppose it!” 


VERONICA. 


159 


Mrs. Lovegrove had not quite forgiven Maud 
for preferring Hugh to her son. As Maud had 
not turned out to be an heiress, the thing was 
the less to be regretted. But to do Mrs. Love- 
grove justice, she had been almost as willing to 
encourage Augustus’s penchant before there was 
any idea of Maud’s being wealthy as after. And 
her maternal vanity had been ruffled by the young 
lady’s cold discouragement of her darling Gus. 

Mrs. Lovegrove’s character was not malicious 
at bottom, however, and, after a minute or so, 
she said, “1 do think Miss Desmond is a really 
good girl.” 

“ Good ? She's an angel ! And so clever !” 

“Indeed? I did not perceive much — a — 
much solidity of intellect in Miss Desmond, I 
confess ; but she is very young still. However, 
it was a very proper attention on her part to call 
on us directly she came to town. Mr. Love- 
grove knew her mother well. He is, indeed, in 
some sort, the young lady’s guardian, and he was 
gratified by her coming.” 

“ Maud Desmond always does the right thing,” 
said Miss Boyce, in serene unconsciousness of 
Augustus’s ill-starred wooing. “ It was a good 
thing that the Sheardowns brought her to town 
with them on a visit. Very nice people the 
Sheardowns. I knew them at Shipley. I hear 
often from that neighborhood, and I fancy the 
vicarage was no fitting or pleasant place for the 
girl.” 

“Really!” exclaimed Mrs. Lovegrove, with a 
strong gleam of curiosity in her gray eyes. 

“No, I’m afraid not. Emma Begbie writes 
to me — there, I’ve let her name slip out. But 
you don’t know her, and, probably, never will, 
so it don’t much matter. Well, this young lady 
tells me that the vicar is going to the dogs — that 
isn’t her phrase, but it is her meaning — as fast 
as he can. He has cut his old friends, and 
formed low connections. And he doesn’t even 
attend to the duties of his church, but has got a 
wretched curate, at twopence a year, to do his 
duty for him, and, in fact, the whole thing is as 
bad as it can be. He’s no fit guardian, and his 
house is no fit home, for a young girl.” 

“A — clergyman — of — the — Church — of — En- 
gland !” said Mrs. Lovegrove, Avith portentous 
slowness, nodding her head at each word. 

“Oh dear, yes! There’s no doubt in the 
world about that." 

Then the tea things were cleared away, and 
presently the Misses Bhcebe and Lucy and Dora 
Lovegrove made some music. And Augustus 
sang a Latin hymn, accompanying himself ; and 
if the vocal portion of this performance were al- 
most inaudible at the other end of the drawing- 
room, the piano-forte part was attacked with un- 
sparing vigor. Then Miss Boyce’s cab was sent 
for, and she w'ent home, having passed, as she 
protested, a very pleasant evening. 


CHARTER XL 

TEMPEST. 

Their life in town, however it may have 
proved to be dust and ashes in Veronica’s mouth, 
was mightily to the taste of her husband. One 
great drawback to his pleasure at first was Ve- 
ronica’s perverse determination to be discontent- 


ed, as he deemed it. What could she desire that 
she had not? They Avere rich, young, fond of 
one another — he, at least, still loA-edher, although 
she seemed resolved to try to cure him of his fond- 
ness — and surrounded by companions Avho asked 
nothing better than to be merry and enjoy them- 
selves. What though this doAvager had declined 
to be introduced to her ; or that doAvdy countess 
refused her invitations ; or that it had hitherto 
been impossible to find a lady to present her at 
court ? Were not the ladies Avhom she did knoAv 
incomparably more lively an'd amusing than these 
dull persons ? And Avas it not an incredible per- 
versity in Veronica to long for that Avhich, had 
it been offered to her — or so Cesare thought — she 
Avould have loathed ? The husband and Avife had 
man}’’ a sharp discussion on this score. 

When Veronica noAv told Cesare that he did 
not understand this or that, he Avould argue the 
point Avith viA’acity. Indeed, but he did under- 
stand : quite as well as she did ; perhaps better ! 
She Avas but a Avoman. And if he were a for- 
eigner in England, he yet kneAv the Avorld — it 
might be that he even knew the English Avorld — 
a great deal more thoroughly than she thought 
for. His friends mauA'ais genre ? Bah ! Mrs. 
Douglas De Raffville Avas one of the most fash- 
ionable AA’omen in London. Lord George, Avho 
had introduced her to them, said so. She Avas, 
at any rate, very handsome, very brilliant, and 
very good-natured : that they could see for them- 
selves. Rer Bacco! These simagrees on her 
part Avere too amusing ! Did she know the his- 
tory of the withered little Duchess Avith the 
pearls, to Avhom she had been so civil at Naples ? 
Then for a day, perhaps, Veronica Avould break 
out into Avild gayety. She Avould be all ablaze 
Avith excitement, until even the rather noisy mirth 
of the society that surrounded her Avould groAv 
dumb, and its members Avould stare at her un- 
easily, or indulge in expressive shrugs and gri- 
maces to each other. These fits of feverish spirits 
Avere invariably folloAved by prolonged depression 
and gloom ; sometimes even by attacks of illness 
that obliged her to keep her bed for a day or so. 
But she Avould see no physician. Her husband, 
more and more separated from her companion- 
ship, and absorbed in his OAvn pursuits, gradually 
ceased to disquiet himself about these strange 
fluctuations of health and spirits. There Avas no 
one at hand Avho cared for her. Her father Avrote 
rarely and briefly. Maud Avas separated from 
her as though the thickness of the globe Avere be- 
tAA^een them. 

One afternoon Veronica AA'as lying half asleep 
on a couch in her boudoir. Her Saauss maid 
Louise entered the darkened room quietly, and 
stood listening. 

“Is Madame la Rrincesse asleep?” 

“Eh? What is it? My head aches,’’ an- 
SAvered Veronica, in a droAvsy voice. 

“ I should not have A’entured to disturb Ma- 
dame la Rrincesse, but the gentleman Avas so im- 
portunate that the footman begged me to come 
and speak AAuth madame.” 

‘ ‘ A gentleman ? I can’t see the card by this 
light. Tell me the name.” 

‘ ‘ Mistare — IMistare Frost. ” 

“Mr. Frost! Well — ^}’es; let Mr. Frost come 
up stairs. Give me the eau de cologne. DraAv 
that curtain a little more. No light, no light! 
Ah, Dio buono, hoAV my head throbs!” 


IGO 


VERONICA. 


In another minute Mr. Erost was ushered into 
the boudoir. 

“ Have I the honor of speaking to the Princess 
de’ Barletti?” asked Mr. Frost, to whom the gloom 
of the chamber seemed at first almost pitch dark- 
ness. 

Veronica greeted him, and told him where to 
find a seat. She half rose from her sofa, but fell 
back again with a murmur of pain. 

“You are suffering? I grieve to intrude. 
But my business is of such importance — ” 

“Of such importance?” 

“To me of the very deepest.” 

Veronica poured some eau de cologne on her 
hands, and passed them over her forehead. Then 
she looked steadily at JMr. Frost, and her eyes, 
more accustomed to the dimness than his, could 
perceive that he was changed; bent, and thin, 
and haggard. And that his restless hands wan- 
dered constantly to his mouth, and that he bit his 
nails furiously. He, for his part, could but just 
discern the outline of her face and figure. 

“Madam,” said Mr. Frost, “ I will not waste 
your time or my own — minutes are very precious 
— by useless preamble. In preferring the request 
I am about to make, I know that I am doing an 
unusual — some might say unwarrantable thing. 
But I am hard pressed : temporarily — only tem- 
porarily. And I was to-day inspired suddenly 
with the hope that you might help me.” 

“ In what way can it be in my power to help 
you?” said Vei'onica, in a strange, dreamy voice. 

“ Will you lend me some money?” 

‘ ‘ Lend you some money ? I thought you were 
very rich ! ” 

“ I shall be. I am, virtually. But there is a 
temporary pressure — a severe pressure.” Mr. 
Frost put his hand to his head, as though the 
pressure he spoke of were there. “I will be 
frank with you. Women can be compassionate 
and generous sometimes. If you will lend me 
the sum I want you will save me from ruin!” 

“ From ruin !” Veronica made an effort, and 
seemed to rouse herself from a lethargy that had 
apparently benumbed her faculties. Her voice 
was more like her own as she said, “But can I 
do this ?” 

“ I think you can. The sum I need is a large 
one. But I know your means are large. I want 
two thousand pounds.” 

“ It is indeed a large sum !” 

“If I can have that sum by the end of this 
month the rest may go. I shall not care. That 
is — I mean I shall be safe.” 

“I should like to do good to somebody,” mur- 
mured Veronica, half aloud. 

“You can do good to more than one person. 
You know young Lockwood, who is engaged to 
marry Maud Desmond ?” 

“ Yes : is it for him f 

“You love Maud Desmond, do you not? I 
have heard that you loved her so much as to of- 
fer her a part of your fortune I ” 

“ I do love her. But what — ” 

“ I can not explain particulars. But I will 
swear to you by any solemn oath you choose, 
that in lending me this money you will be serv- 
ing them. If I can not induce you to believe 
that — believe at least that, as I said, you will be 
saving me from ruin. God is my Avitness that 
that is true ! ” 

The manner of the man — so different from 


the self-possessed, easy, dignified air she remem- 
bered in him — impressed her greatly. 

“ I should like,” she said again, “ to do good 
to somebody.” 

Mr. Frost gathered all his energies to plead 
his cause. His w’ords were eloquent. But more 
eloquent to Veronica were his trembling lips, his 
wrinkled brow, his eager and restless hands. 

“If I can do this thing I will,” she said, at 
length. 

He sprang up and took her hand. “I can 
not thank you in words,” he said. “It w’as a 
good inspiration that made me think of applying 
to you!” 

“But — I shall need my husband’s consent.” 

“ Your husband’s only?” 

“ Certainly. Whose else ?” 

“You have no marriage settlement? No 
trustees ?” 

This was the first time that the idea of having 
her money settled on herself had occurred to her. 
Her marriage had been hurried and private. 
There had been no one to Avatch her interests or 
advise her. And, lest it sliould be supposed that 
Cesare had purposely taken a dishonorable ad- 
vantage of her confidence or imprudence, it must 
be explained that marriage settlements are un- 
known in his country ; and that he aa^us too ig- 
norant of English customs to be aAvare of their 
existence here. 

“No,” she ansAA'ei'ed, after a moment's pause. 
“ I have no settlement ; no trustees. I have no 
one but Cesare.” 

“Ind.eed!” said Mr. Frost, looking at her for 
an instant AAuth his old searching keenness. 
“Fortunately for me,” he added, “your influ- 
ence over Prince Barletti is unbounded. I re- 
member noting that. ” 

“ Do you ?” 

“Yes. If I huA'e your promise, I am secure 
about the prince. But he may require more ex- 
planations than you have asked for. You have 
been generous in refraining from questioning me. 

I feel it. I shall not forget it. But he Avill say, 
perhaps, ‘ Why did not this man apply else- 
where? to his partner, for example? to those 
connected Avith him by business ties?’ I reply 
that in certain circumstances to be seen to need 
a thing is fatal. The very urgency of the case' 
excites mistrust and apprehension. And the 
small sum Avhich divides ruin from security can 
not be obtained, because it is so essential to obtain 
it. But I Avill see the prince. I Avill speak with 
him. I Avill giA^e him any guarantee in my poAver. 
Only let me have your promise. That is suffi- 
cient. One Avord more ! I rely on your gener- 
osity and honor to keep this application a secnet.” 

“ If I can do this thing, I Avill,” said Veronica 
once more. 

Then Mr. Frost took his leave, scarcely dar- 
ing to believe in his success ; and yet feeling as 
though a mantle of lead, such as Dante gives to 
certain Avretched souls in purgatory, had been 
lifted from his head and shoulders since entering 
that house. 

Cesare returned late in the afternoon from his 
ride. Cesare’s riding, though better than his 
driAung, Avas yet not altogether satisfactory to in- 
sular eyes. There Avas a Avooden rigidity about 
his legs, and a general air of being keenly alive 
to the possibility of his horse having the best of 
it in case of any difference of opinion arising be- 


VERONICA. 


]G1 


tween tliem inimical to grace. Nevertheless as 
he had good horses, and was willing to lend one 
of them now and then to a friend, he found com- 
panions content to join him in equestrian excur- 
sions to places in the neighborhood of London ; 
or even — though of this his friends were more 
shy — in a canter in the Row. On the present 
occasion he had been honored by the society of 
two ladies, in addition to that of his friend Count 
Rolyopolis, a Greek gentleman of very varied ac- 
complishments, which were apparently not duly 
appreciated in his own country, but for the exer- 
cise of which he found a favorable field in Lon- 
don, after ha\’ing exhausted Paris and Vienna. 
They had all been very merry, and Cesare en- 
tered in high good-humor. 

“You were wrong not to come, ma belle 
princesse,” said he, gayly. “It was very pleas- 
ant. We alighted at a village inn, and had beer! 
Pigurati ! And there was a garden to the inn, 
where there w'as a target. We shot at the target 
with bows and arrows. Nobody could hit the 
mark. It was immensely amusing!” 

Veronica’s headache had apparently passed off. 
She w^as dressed with care and elegance. Her 
voice was gentle, and her manner conciliating, 
as she said to him, 

“ Come here and sit down by me, Cesare mio ! 
I have a word to say to you.” 

“ Must I not dress for dinner?” 

“There is time enough. Come here for a 
moment. ” 

He obeyed. Seating himself beside her, he 
pressed her hand to his lips. It was very thin, 
and burned with a feverish heat. 

“Cara!” he said, touched Avith a vague pity 
as he looked at the wasted little fingers on which 
the sparkling rings sat so loosely. “If you Avould 
always be kind to me, I would rather stay here 
with you than divert myself with those others ! ” 

“ Ah, you Avould get tii'ed of staying here with 
me, Cesare! and I do not wish you to do so. 
But I like to hear you say so. Do you really 
love me, Cesare ?” 

“Ma si!” 

“I had a visitor while you were out this after- 
noon ; an unexpected visitor.” 

“II Vicario ? No ? It was not that accursed 
doctor?” 

“ Oh, Cesare ! Why should you speak so of 
poor Mr. Plew ? What reason on earth have you 
to dislike him ?” 

“Hoav can I tell? It is an antipathy, I sup- 
pose. With his insipid face, and his eyes like 
your English sky, neither blue nor gray ! He 
attacks my nerves. Well, it was not he ?” 

Veronica made an effort to suppress an angry 
reply. 

“ It w^as Mr. Erost,” she answered, shortly, not 
trusting her self-control to say more at that in- 
stant. 

“ Mr. Frost ! Davvero ! — Mr. Frost ! Ah il 
povero Frost! He was tres bon enfant at Na- 
ples ; and what was better, a very good lawyer !” 

“He is in trouble.” 

‘ ‘ Si, eh ?” said Cesare, w'hose interest in this 
announcement did not appear to be keen. 

‘ ‘ And I have promised to help him. ” 

“Oh! that was very kind of 3'ou,” obseiwed 
Cesare, Avith a shade of surprise, that yet w'as not 
lively enough to rouse him to any great demon- 
stration of caring about Avhat V eronica Avas saying. 
L 


“Yes; I haA’e promised to lend him some 
money. ” 

‘ ‘ IF/iat f" He was not indifferent noAv. “You 
are jpsting ! Lend Mr. Frost money ! ” 

‘ ‘ I, too, Avas surprised at his request. ” 

“What AA^as it? Hoav Avas it? Oh!” ex- 
claimed Cesare, struck by a sudden idea, ‘ ‘ per- 
haps he had forgotten his pocket-book, and Avant- 
ed a feAv pounds. Were you able to give them 
to him ?” 

“Then you would not have objected to my 
doing so ?” 

“/« that case, no.” 

“I am glad of that,” said Veronica, ignoring 
the AA’ords in italics, “because I promised to 
assist him. It is a large sum he Avants. But 
wa can afford it, I suppose. I never enter into 
the details of our fortune, but I make no doubt 
that it Avill not be difficult for us. In seiwing 
him, I shall be indirectly serving others in AA'hom 
I am interested. I do not exactly understand 
hoAv; but if j’ou AA^ere to ask him he might tell 
you more explicitly. I AA'as greatly struck by 
the change in Mr. Frost’s appearance. He seems 
to have been harassed nearly to death. But if 
you had seen the light that came into his face 
Avhen I said ‘Y’'es!’ It gaA’e me quite a neAv 
sensation. I promised to lend him tAvo thousand 
pounds ! ” w 

Cesare had sat silent, listening to his Avife Avith 
groAving uneasiness in his fiice. At these last 
Avords he jumped up and uttered a loud ejacu- 
lation. But in the next instant he burst into a 
mocking laugh : 

“What a fool I am! Y"ou made me belicA'c 
you Avere in earnest.” 

But eA^en as he said the words his angry face 
belied them. 

“I am in earnest, Cesare.” 

For all reply he laughed again, and began to 
walk up and doAAm the room, switching his rid- 
ing-Avhip right and left with a sharp, vicious mo- 
tion. 

Veronica proceeded to recapitulate Mr. Frost’s 
Avords as well as she could remember them. She 
spoke earnestly and eagerly. At length, finding 
that she made no impression on her husband, 
she began to lose patience. “It Avould be some- 
Avhat less grossly ill-bred and discourteous,” she 
said, “ if you AA^ere to favor me AA'ith your objec- 
tions, if you do object, instead of sneering and 
strutting in that intolerable manner. ” 

“My objections are that the Avhole idea is 
contrary to common-sense. Tu sei pazza — you 
are mad, mia cara.” 

“ Hoav contrary to common-sense? I do not 
think it at all contrary to common-sense,” 

“You do not see, for example, that this man 
must be at the last extremity before he Avould 
attempt such a desperate forlorn hope as this? 
That he must be as good as ruined already ? Tu 
sei pazza!” 

“ But if AA'e could saA’e him — and others ?” 

“Pazza, pazza, pazza!” 

“Cesare, I gaA'e him my promise.” 

“You must haA'e been beAvitched, or — dream- 
ing Avhen you gave it,” he ansAA^ered, Avith a sin- 
gular look. 

“After all, the money is mine, and I choose 
to claim the disposal of it,” she cried, her long- 
repressed resentment blazing out on her cheeks 
and in her eyes. 


VERONICA. 


‘1G2 

Cesare wheeled sharp round in his walk, and 
looked at her. 

“Do you know,” he said, slowly, “I begin 
to be afraid that you really are not in possession 
of your senses.” 

“I am in full possession of my senses. I de- 
spise your sneer. I despise you ; yes, I despise 
you ! I will not forfeit my word to please your 
grudging, petty meanness ! The money is mine, 
mine, I tell you. And I will have some share 
in the disposal of it.” 

Then he let the demon of rage take full pos- 
session of him. From between his clenched 
teeth he hissed out such words as speedily made 
her quail and shudder and sink down, burying 
her head among the cushions of the couch. He 
had learned much during the past three months, 
both of her position and his own in the eyes of 
the world ; and he spared her no detail of his 
knowledge. He knew his privileges ; he knew 
that there was nothing in all the world which 
she could call her own ; and he also knew that 
his name and title were looked on as more than 
equivalent for the surrender of herself* and all 
she possessed. He had lately had increasing rea- 
son to be displeased w’ith her. His new friends 
did not love her. They resented her pride, and 
i^iculed her pretensions. A hundred taunts 
miich, but for the accidental firing of the long 
train of discontents, and spites, and vexations, 
might have remained forever unspoken, leaped 
from his tongue. His passion grew with speech, 
as a smouldering fire rushes into flame at the 
contact of the outer air. He turned and twisted 
the elastic riding-whip ferociously in his hands 
as though it were a living thing that he took 
pleasure in torturing. And at length, approach- 
ing nearer and nearer to Veronica as she cow- 
ered on the sofa, bending closer and closer over 
her, and hissing his fierce invectives into her ear, 
he suddenly drew himself upright, whirled the 
twisted whip with a crash into the midst of some 
porcelain toys that stood on a distant table, and 
dashed headlong from the room. 


CHAPTER XII. 

IN TIME. 

Mr. Lovegrove was very uneasy in his mind. 
His uneasiness was not the less irksome in that 
he confided it to no one. A small circumstance 
had put the climax to a heap of doubts and sus- 
picions which had long been accumulating. It 
may be remembered that Mr. Lovegrove had ex- 
pressed to his partner his desire to have a little 
confidential talk with him, and that his partner 
had expressed himself perfectly willing that the 
confidential talk should take place. It had not 
yet taken place, however. Mr. Frost always 
found some excuse for postponing it. 

On the same day on which Mr. Lovegrove had 
first spoken of this desire on his part it may also 
be remembered that a sum of money just received 
by the firm had been taken away by Mr. Frost, 
to bank, as he said. Mr. Lovegrove had asked 
him about it later, and Mr. Frost had answered. 
Oh yes ; it was all right. And there the matter 
had dropped. But two days after Mr. Frost’s 
visit to the Princess de’ Bai'letti Mr. Lovegrove 
made the very disagreeable discovery that the 


money in question had never been paid into the 
bank at all ! The sum w'as an insignificant one, 
after all ; and could he have looked upon the cir- 
cumstance as a mere instance of carelessness and 
forgetfulness on the part of Mr. Frost he would 
have been irritated and annoyed by it, certainly, 
but he would have felt no more serious distress 
than those epithets might convey. But Mr. 
Frost, w'hen questioned, had not clapped his hand 
to his forehead and exclaimed that the matter had 
slipped his memory : he had not even acknowl- 
edged that he had not yet paid the money, and 
promised that he would remedy the omission. He 
had answered with composure that the matter was 
all right. Mr. Frost, then, had told his partner 
a lie. Mr. Lovegrove was more hurt by this dis- 
covery than he would willingly have acknowd- 
edged. He had a very strong attachment to Sid- 
ney Frost. He had the habit of looking up to 
his talents and character with much the same 
admiring delight with which an ingenuous little 
boy contemplates the cock of his school. Though 
at the same time Mr. Lovegrove understood very 
w’ell v’^hat were the solid plodding qualities in 
which he himself excelled his partner, and which 
were especially useful to the success of their joint 
affairs. 

Mr, Lovegrove knew himself to be a plain man 
— plain in looks, plain in mind, and plain in 
manners. 

But he had great pride and delight in Mr. 
Frost’s brilliant superiority on all these points. 

If one might dare to hint at the existence of 
any thing like romance in the regal’d of one mid- 
dle-aged lawyer for another, it might almost be 
said that Mr. Lovegrove’s feeling for his friend 
was romantic. And be it understood that there 
was no human being on the face of the earth who 
would have more derisively scouted such an idea, 
could it have been broached to him, than Mr. 
Lovegrove himself. Mr. Lovegrove had no soon- 
er made the discovery above mentioned than he 
resolv^ed with an inflexible resolution to lose no 
more time in coming to an explanation with his 
partner. The discovery was made after office- 
hours. Mr. Frost had, therefore, already left 
Bedford Square. The junior partner debated 
wdth himself what measures he should take in 
order to carry out the purpose he had formed. 
Mr. Lovegrove having once formed a purpose, 
never permitted himself to discuss lohether or no 
he should carry it out: he merely considered 
hoiu he should fulfill it, which was one of the re- 
sults of the smallness of his faculty of imagina- 
tion — and also one of the secrets of his success in 
life. 

“Sarah, my dear,” said he to his wife, after 

tea, “I am going over to Bays water this even- 
ly™ ” * 

mg. 

“To a party?” demanded Mrs. Lovegrove, 
w'ith a rapid jealous notion that her long-nour, 
ished suspicions of Mrs. Frost's intention to in- 
sult her unmistakably had at length been con- 
firmed. 

“To a party! My dear Sarah, what are you 
dreaming of? Do I ever go to a party w'ithout 
you ? And is it likely that the Frosts would in- 
vite me alone ?” ’'T 

Mrs. Lovegrove, a little ashamed of her too 
hasty conclusion, murmured something to the 
effect that there w’as no knowing what “that 
woman” might not do. 


VERONICA. 


1G3 


“ But I am not going to see ‘ that woman I 
am going to see ‘that man.’ My visit is solely 
on business.” " • 

“It’s a strange hour to have a business ap- 
pointment. I think, Augustus, that you might 
consecrate your evenings to domestic peace. I’m 
sure you work hard enough in the day, poor old 
Gus ! ” said Mrs. Lovegrove. 

The lady’s sudden descent from the regions of 
lofty severity to undignified and familiar affec- 
tion was due to the pressure of her husband’s 
arm encircling her waist and the touch of her 
husband’s lips on her forehead. 

“You know I never want to leave you and 
the girls, Sally. But I want to speak to Frost 
particularly. I must speak with him. Give me 
a kiss, Sally. I don’t go because I like going, 
and I sha’n’t spend a pleasant time, you may de- 
pend on it. ” 

Mrs. Lovegrove was very sincerely fond of her 
husband ; and as she marked his fiice and gauged 
the tone of his voice — every vibration of which 
had become known to her as thoroughly as those 
things are known which love teaches, behind the 
accuracy of whose instructions all other powers 
and passions limp at a long distance — she per- 
ceived that there was, as she phrased it, “some- 
thing on his mind.” And she refrained from 
saying another provoking word to add to the 
burden. Mr. Lovegrove walked part of the way 
toward Bayswater, meaning to pursue his jour- 
ney from a certain point in the omnibus. But 
the night was fine, and the walk was agreeable 
to the lawyer after his day spent busily in a hot, 
close office ; and he therefore strolled on and on, 
until he found that he might as well proceed to 
his destination on foot. Thus, as it turned out, 
it was close on ten o’clock by the time he reach- 
ed Mr. Frost’s house in Bayswater. He had no 
need to knock or ling for admittance. The 
street door was open, and a couple of servants — 
a man and woman — were lounging on the steps 
enjoying the evening air. 

“Is Mr. Frost within?” asked Lovegrove, al- 
most fearing to be answered in the negative. 

— not Mrs.?” asked the man, who did 
not at first recognize Mr. Lovegrove. The vis- 
its of the laitter to Bayswater were not frequent 
enough to render his face very familiar to the 
servants there. 

“il/r. Frost. I wish to se^your master if he 
is at home.” 

“Oh, Mr. LovegVove ! I beg pardon. Sir; I 
asked because my mistress is gone. I suppose 
you know.” 

“Gone! Good Heav-ens ! not dead?” 

“Oh no. Sir; but she has left master. Sir. I 
shouldn’t say any thing only you’re of course so 
intimate, and such a friend. ” 

“ I had heard nothing ! I had no idea ! Per- 
haps you are mistaken. Mrs. Frost has merely 
gone on a visit — for a time. It can't be !” 

“Well, Sir, I’m afraid you’ll find it is true. 
As for our knowing it, why, we couldn’t help 
ourselves. The next-door neighbors might have 
known it — very likely they do.” (The speaker 
had already discussed the affair in its minutest 
details with half the servants in the neighbor- 
hood.) “ And I’m glad you’ve chanced to come 
up to-night. Sir, for master’s in a awful state — 
indeed, I thought that was what you come for. ” 

JMr. Lovegrove was in much consternation. 


“Do you think I had better try to see him?” 
he asked, doubtfully. 

The very fact of his asking the servant’s opin- 
ion would have sufficed to prove to any one who 
knew Mr. Lovegrove the extraordinary perturba- 
tion of his spirit. 

“ I think you had. Sir. Some one ought to see 
him. He’s shut hisself up in his study since six 
o’clock, and wouldn’t take food nor do nothing. 
Half an hour ago he opened his door and called 
to us that we might go to bed, and shut up the 
house as soon as we liked. We weren’t to go 
near him again. He wanted nothing.” 

“I will go in,” said Mr. Lovegrove, with de- 
cision. “ I don’t want you. I know my way.” 

The door of the little room behind the dining- 
room, which Mr. Frost occupied as his study, 
was shut. Mr. Lovegrove approached it and 
paused, hesitating whether or not he should 
knock for admission. But after a moment he 
turned the handle and went in. 

Frost was sitting at a table with writing ma- 
terials upon it. A tumbler with some brandy in 
it stood by his right hand. On the other side 
was placed a polished wooden box of peculiar 
shape. Before him lay two or three sheets of 
letter-paper closely covered with writing. At 
the opening of the door he looked up quietly, 
and tossed some papers over the box that stood 
on the table. He had expected to see the serv- 
ant merely. When he recognized Lovegrove his 
face changed, and he looked at him fixedly with- 
out speaking. Lovegrove had no need to ask a 
question. The haggard countenance that met 
his eyes, with the light of the lamp falling full on 
it, was confirmation stronger than words that the 
servant had not exaggerated the state of matters. 

“Frost!” he said, and held out his hand. 

The other did not take it. “So you have 
heard!” he said, hoarsely. 

“Only this instant. I was more overwhelm- 
ed — more amazed than I can say. I — I had 
some hope that the man — ^your servant — had 
misstated in some way. But I fear — IMy dear 
Frost, I feel for you if ever one man felt for an- 
other. I do, upon my soul!” 

“Why did you come here, then?” asked Mr. 
Frost, in the same monotonous hoarse voice. 

‘ ‘ I came — no matter now for the business that 
brought me here. I can not harass you with it 
now. But, Frost, you must not break down in 
this way ! For all sakes you must take courage ! ” 

“ Break down !” echoed Frost, in precisely the 
same tone and manner as before ; “ no ; I have 
not broken down.” 

“ This,” said Lovegrove, pointing to the bran- 
dy, “is a bad comforter and a Avorse counselor. 
You should take food ; and perhaps a glass of 
sherry Avhen you have eaten. God bless my soul! I 
— I — feel like a man in a dreadful dream ! When 
did it happen ? I mean, when did — did she — ” 

“She went away this afternoon. She was 
gone when I came home from the office. She 
took her maid, and her jewels, and her clothes. 
She was very fond of her clothes. They Avere 
the only objects that ever touched her affections. ” 
Sidney Frost laughed a short laugh as he said 
the last Avords : a laugh that made the man op- 
posite to him shiver. 

“ For Heaven’s sake, man, don’t — don’t laugh ! 
— if that hideous sound can be termed a laugh. 
Then she — Mrs. Frost — did she go alone ?” 


1G4 


VERONICA. 


“I tell you she was accompanied by aU that 
she loved in the world ! But you mean, did she 
elope ? Did she leave me for a lover ? Did she 
disgrace herself? Oh no ! Not so. I would 
have you to understand that Mrs. Erost is a wo- 
man of spotless virtue — spotless, spotless virtue ! 
She only breaks her husband’s heart ; but in no- 
wise tarnishes his honor. ” 

And again the horrible laugh sounded through 
the room. 

“ Here is her letter. She left a letter. That 
was very considerate, was it not? Would you 
like to read it ?” 

Frost tossed a letter across the table to his 
partner, and then, leaning his elbows on the ta- 
ble, buried his face in his hands. Mr. Lovegrove 
read the letter slowly and attentively. When he 
had finished it he threw it down with an expres- 
sion of disgust, and something like an oath rose 
to his lips. 

“By G — ! such heartlessness is incredible!” 

Georgina Frost had left her home, as her hus- 
band had said, taking with her her jewels and 
the greater part of her costly wardrobe. She 
wrote that her life had long been intolerable to 
her ; that her husband was either a ruined man, 
or was growing rapidly to a pitch of parsimony 
which threatened to become a monomania. 

In the first case he would be relieved by her 
absence ; in the second, she must decline to make 
herself a victim to his avarice and his temper. 
She was going to her mother and her widowed 
sister, who resided abroad. They would willing- 
ly receive her. Her mother’s property would 
eventually be hers, and she had no scruple in ac- 
cepting a home with her parent. If brighter 
days should come, they might meet again. But 
Sidney must be aware that his conduct and tem- 
per during the past three months had been such 
us to alienate her affection to a great extent. 
Indeed, there were moments when she had fear- 
ed personal violence. He would scarcely be sur- 
prised — if indeed he were at all surprised — at the 
step she had taken. And she remained his af- 
fectionate and unhappy wife, 

“Frost,” said Mr. Lovegrove, laying his hand 
on the forsaken husband’s arm, “ you said some- 
thing about a broken heart. You are not going 
to break your heart for a woman who could write 
such a letter as that !” 

Mr. Frost looked up at him with a ghastly 
face. His features w'rithed and worked convul- 
sively, but no tears fell from his hot eyes. 

“ What is the use of your talking ?” he gasped 
out. ‘ ‘ You did not love her. She was not your 
wife, your life, your idol. All these yeai’s that 
she lay in my bosom I loved her more and more 
day by day. I had not a thought nor a hope nor 
a wish that did not tend to her pleasure and com- 
fort and happiness. I knew she did not love me 
as I loved her. How could she ? How could 
any woman have the strength to love as I loved 
her? But I thought she had some gleam of 
kindness for me — some human pity. Not break 
my heart ! It is broken, and crushed, and dead. 
The light has gone out of my life.” 

“Sidney Frost,” exclaimed Lovegrove, sud- 
denly springing up and laying his hand on the 
wooden box, the significance of wdiich had at that 
moment flashed on his mind for the first time, 
“ I thank Almighty God that I came here to- 
night to save you from an awful crime. Give 


me the pistol-case. I will have it. I am not 
afraid of you. Sit down. Sit down, and sit still. 
And listen to me !” 

After a brief and unavailing struggle — for his 
strength was worn out, and he was, although a 
powerfully built man, no match just then for the 
other’s cool, determined energy — Frost obeyed. 
He sank back into his chair, and a great burst 
of tears came to relieve his overcharged brain. 
Then Lovegrove talked to him gently and firm- 
ly. Mr. Lovegrove was not a man of command- 
ing intellect ; and he used many arguments at 
which Sidney had been accustomed to scoff, less 
from conviction than a careless, irreverent tone 
of mind, to which cynicism appeared a short and 
easy method of cutting sundry Gordian knots 
that could not be unraveled. But Lovegrove 
possessed the enormous advantages of thorough- 
ly believing what he said, and of speaking with 
a heart-felt interest in the man he addressed. 
Gradually Frost grew calmer. He said nothing, 
but he listened at least with patience : and once 
he put out his hand, with his face turned away, 
and pressed the other man’s for a moment. 

“You — you do not know all,” he faltered at 
length, when Lovegrove paused. 

“Confide in me. Frost, I beseech you! We 
have known each other many years. We have 
always been friends, have we not ? Confide in 
me fully. You will not repent doing so.” 

“I had written to you — a farewell letter — a 
letter of explanation. I had thought it would 
meet no human eye until I should be out of reach 
of — Well, I had made a clean breast of it. 
You may see it if you will. It matters little. I 
am past caring for any thing, I think. But I 
have a dull, dim sense of your goodness, Love- 
grove. I think you are a good fellow'. ” 

Poor Mr. Lovegrove had little conception of 
the revelations that awaited him. His first act 
w'as to ring for the servant. He stood at the 
door of the room to prevent the man from enter- 
ing it. When the sen'ant appeared he bade him 
bring a tray wdth food : cold meat, or whatever 
could be had, he said, and a little wine and bread. 
This tray, when it w'as brought, he received at 
the door, and set before his partner with his own 
hands. Then he shut the door, and, standing 
over Frost, commanded him peremptorily to eat. 
Having seen the latter reluctantly sw’allow one or 
two mouthfuls, Mr. Lovegrove sat dew'll, wdtli the 
pistol-case under his elbow', to peruse the close- 
ly-written sheets of his partner’s confession. 
More than once, during the perusal, Mr. Love- 
grove w'iped the perspiration from his forehead, 
and breathed hard, like a man undergoing severe 
bodily exertion. But he read on, with a steady, 
silent perseverance, little less than heroic. Frost 
had indeed, as he had said, made a clean breast 
of it. 

The reader is already acquainted with the 
main points of the confession. He acknowledged 
his fraud in depriving Hugh Lockw'ood of his 
rightful inheritance during so many years — 
merely suppressing, with a lingering trait of the 
generous honor he had once possessed, and 
which he had forfeited for the w'ife w'ho had de- 
serted him, Zillah’s part in the deception of her 
husband and her son. Then came a record of 
disastrous speculations, recklessly entered into, 
in the spirit of an unsuccessful gambler, who 
throw's one stake to bring back another, and W'ith 


VERONICA. 


165 


the object of supplying the extravagant expend- 
iture of his household. Debts pressed on every 
side. Latterly there had been the threat of dis- 
grace and exposure should he fail to refund Hugh 
Lockwood’s money. There had been a tempo- 
rary gleam of hope when his attempt to borrow 
from Veronica had seemed crowned with success. 
The affairs of the wretched Farthenope Company 
had also, just at that time, flickered up into 
brightness. But a few hours had wrested this 
last hope from him. He received from Cesare a 
note, couched in the most courteous and almost 
affectionate terms, regretting much that the Frin- 
cipessa had been led by an impulse of sympathy 
(which Cesare begged to say he thoroughly 
shared) into promising that Avhich it was out of 
their power to perform. Their expenses had 
been very heavy. And Mr. Frost was aware 
that the fortune inherited by Sir John Gale’s 
widow represented only a comparatively small 
portion of the late baronet’s wealth. In brief, 
Frince Cesare was deeply afflicted, but he could 
not lend Mr. Frost a guinea; and he trusted 
with all his heart that the latter would speedily 
tide over his embarrassments. 

After getting this note Frost confessed that he 
had almost despaired. There was but one mo- 
tive left to induce him to struggle on — Georgina. 
He reached his home, and found that she had 
fled from the falling house. Her letter, proving 
beyond all possibility of self-delusion that her 
heart was entirely hardened against him, had 
broken down the last remnant of his courage, 
and he had resolved, as Lovegrove had divined, 
to die by his own hand. Mr. Lovegrove thought 
long and anxiously as to the course it behooved 
him to follow; and at length, after a conversa- 
tion which lasted far into the night, he made the 
following propositions to Mr. Frost. First, that 
the latter should retire from the partnership, giv- 
ing up his share of the business to Augustus, who 
was now qualified to take it. For this conces- 
sion Mr. Lovegrove would undertake at once to 
settle Hugh Lockwood’s claim, and to make such 
other advances as might be agreed on hereafter. 
Secondly, Frost was to give his word that he 
would, as soon as his retirement from the firm of 
Frost and Lovegrove should be announced, call a 
meeting of his creditors, and lay his affairs candid- 
ly before them. If a composition was found to be 
impracticable, he must then become a bankrupt : 
but in an open and upright manner, giving up 
whatsoever property he had, without reserve. 

Thus the disgrace of having the name of one 
of its members in the gazette would be averted 
from the firm, which point iveighed a good deal 
with Mr. Lovegrove. Finally, Mr. Lovegrove 
would undertake to assist his former partner in 
any way that might seem, on due consideration, 
to be advisable, and ivithin the limits of what he 
(Lovegrove) considered compatible with justice 
to his own family. All this Mr. Lovegrove set 
forth at length, and with a clearness of state- 
ment which, even in that depth of misery and 
despair in Avhich he found himself, impressed 
Frost with the conviction that he had hitherto a 
little underestimated his partner’s powers of mind. 

“ I am not in the least a sentimental man, you 
know. Frost,” said Mr. Lovegrove. “And I do 
not pretend that in proposing these arrangements 
I am not, as far as is fair and practicable, con- 
sulting my own interests. ” 


Nevertheless the fact was that the junior part- 
ner was willing to make more than one sacrifice 
for the senior, and to treat him with generosity. 
But Mr. Lovegrove would have been much an- 
gered had he been taxed with any such weak- 
ness as a tender desire to spare Sidney Frost’s 
feelings at the expense of solid advantage to him- 
self. Frost was broken down in mind and body. 
He had no will to oppose to that of his friend. 
And he knew in his heart that the other man 
was using his position with forbearing kindndss. 
He agreed to all. 

Mr. Lovegrove deemed it his duty to admon- 
ish Mr. Frost once more with some sternness on 
the fatal intention he had entertained. 

“ Suicide,” said he, “ is not only criminal, but 
cowardly. A man of your sort has better things 
to do than to die like a dog because he finds life 
hard.” . 

He extorted from Frost a solemn promise that 
he Avould make no further attempt on his own 
life. And he did not leave him until lie had seen 
him prepared for his night’s rest. 

“I think he Avill sleep,” thought ]\Ir, Love- 
grove. “Nature is wearied out. And 1 belieie 
there is no further fear of — that!" 

Nevertheless, before quitting the house, IMr. 
Lovegrove took the precaution of plunging the 
loaded pistols into a basin of Avater, and then 
locking them up in the case, damp and dripping 
as they Avere. 

^ 

CHAPTER XIII. 
zillah’s resolution. 

“Mother!” cried Hugh LoclcAvood, coming 
hastily into the little parlor in Gower Street, and 
taking his mother in his arms, “ good news, 
mother! Let me see your dear face a little 
brighter than it has been for this long time. 
There is good neAvs for you, little mother, do 
you hear?” 

“Good neAvs for me? That can only mean 
good ncAA's for you, my son !” replied Zillah, un- 
consciously epitomizing all her AvidoAved life in 
the sentence. 

“ Of course ; good for me, good for you, good 
for Maud. Darling Maud ! Kiss me, mother.” 

Tlien he told her that Mr. Frost had that day 
informed him by letter that the sum of money 
borroAved from his late father — so the note Avas 
Avorded — plus the interest on the capital during 
the last twenty-five years, Avas lying at his dis- 
posal at Mr. LoA’egrove’s office in Bedford Square, 
and that on his personal application it Avould be 
handed OA'er to him. 

“Why, mother, it is more than I hoped to get 
out of the fire. Five per cent, for tAventy-five 
years ! It Avill more than double the original* 
sum !” 

“ Oh, thank God ! IMy Hugh, my Hugh, Avhat 
a Aveight of remorse is taken from my heart! 
And he has done AA'ell, after all, poor Sidney !” 

“Done Avell ? Not at all,” said Hugh, Avhose 
sense of justice Avas not obfuscated by his joy as 
his mother’s Avas. “Very far from Avell he has 
done, mother. Five per cent, on the capital 
every year is the veiy least that could pretend to 
approach fitir dealing — and, in ffict, nothing can 
make his conduct out to be fair. But he has 


166 


VERONICA. 


done better than I expected ; and I am very 
glad and thankful, and mean to think of nothing 
but the bright side of things, I assure you.” 

When Hugh went to receive his money he 
perceived that the brass plate on the outer door, 
which nsually stood open during office hours, 
had been removed, and a man was painting out 
the black letters on a drab ground on the door- 
post, which formed the words, “Messrs. Frost 
and Lovegrove, Solicitors.” Hugh was shown 
into Mr. Lovegrove’s office, and received by that 
gentleman in person. 

“ The last time we met in this office, Mr. 
Lockwood,” said the lawyer, “your errand here 
was to repudiate a fortune. Now you come to 
receive — well, not a fortune, perhaps, but a sum 
of money that in my young days would have been 
looked upon as affording a very pretty start in 
life. I am glad of it, and wish you every suc- 
cess,” 

“Thank you heartily,” 

“You have — ahem! — you have Mr. Frost’s 
acknowledgment for the money lent by your fa- 
ther, Mr. Lockw'ood?” 

Hugh took from his pocket-book a yellow bit 
of paper with some words in Sidney Frost’s bold 
clear writing upon it. At one corner of the pa- 
per there was a green stain, and near it the im- 
pression of a thumb in red paint. 

‘ ‘ Here it is, Mr. Lovegrove. My poor father 
must have been at work in his studio when that 
paper was written. It is marked with the traces 
of his calling.” 

“H’m!” said Mr. Lovegrove, examining the 
paper gravely. “A sadly informal document. 
Ha! Avell, here is the money, Mr. Lockwood. 
Will you be kind enough to count the notes in 
the presence of my clerk? Just step here for a 
moment, if you please, Mr. Burgess.” 

“It is all quite right, Sir,” said Hugh, when 
this had been done. Then, when the clerk left 
the room, he said, Avith a slight hesitation, “ I 
don’t know how intimate your knoAvledge of Mr. 
Fi'ost’s private affairs may have been, bixt I can 
not help entertaining an idea that I owe the re- 
covery of this money mainly to your influence, 
Mr. LovegroA'e.” 

“ As to my knoAvledge of the state of Mr. Frost’s 
private fortune, it is now, I may say, extremely 
intimate. But I have only quite recently learned 
the existence of this debt to you. And — Mr. 
Lockwood, I make no excuses for my partner. 
But I — I — I Avill confess to you that it hurts me 
to hear any one hard upon him. And there Avere 
certain palliations — certain palliations. His do- 
mestic relations Avere unfortunate. Upon my 
Avord, Avhen I see the quantity of mischief that 
Avomen are capable of causing, I feel thankful, 
positiA'ely most truly thankful, that they don’t ex- 
ercise their poAver more ruthlessly than they do !” 
• Hugh smiled, “ You have had a happy ex- 
perience of the sex yourself, ^ir,” said he. 

“Why, yes. My mother Avas an excellent 
Avoman, and my Avife is an excellent Avoman, and 
my girls are good, sound-hearted girls as you’ll 
find any Avhere, thank God ! And I most firmly 
belieA'e, Mr. LockAVOod, that the young lady 
Avhom you are about to marry is an ornament 
to her sex. You love her and respect her very 
much now, I liaA^e not the least doubt. But, 
take my word for it, that you Avill love her and 
respect her more Avhen she has been your Avife 


some dozen years! Oh, of course, that seems 
impossible! Yes, yes, I know. I suppose you 
Avill be married very soon noAv ?” 

“As soon as possible !” said Hugh, Avith much 
energy. “ Oh, by-the-by, Mr. Lovegrove, I see 
they are painting out the name of the firm on 
your door-post. Are you going to make any 
change in the style and title of it ?” 

“Yes; a considerable change. Mr. Frost 
retires from the business altogethei* — the deeds 
Avere signed this moraing — and the firm Avill 
henceforth be knoAvn as Lov'egrove and Love- 
grove. ” 

“ All success to it under its neAV name, say I. 
But I had not heard that this Avas in contempla- 
tion. ” 

Mr. Lovegrove proceeded to narrate as briefly 
as might be the misfortunes that had, as he said, 
determined Mr. Frost to give up business — so 
much, that is, of his misfortunes as must inevi- 
tably become matter of public notoriety. He 
spared his old partner as much as possible in the 
narrative. But he did not by any means spare 
his old partner’s Avife, to Avhom indeed he Avas 
inclined to attribute eA^ery thing that had gone 
ill, even to the total smash and failure of the 
Parthenope Embellishment Company, Avhich had 
become matter of public notoriety Avithin the last 
Aveek. 

Hugh Avas much shocked. And his good 
opinion of Mr. LovegroA'e Avas greatly enhanced 
by the feeling he evinced for his old friend. 

“ He is really a most superior man, Mr. Lock- 
AA^ood. I don’t knoAv a more superior man than 
Sidney Frost is — or ivas — Avas, alas ! He is a 
Avreck noAV, Sir. You AAOuldn’t knoAv him. I 
Avant to send him off to Cannes or Nice, or some 
of those places for the Avinter. He has giA^en up 
every thing most honorably to his creditors, and 
they have not behaved badly. They understood 
to a man whose door to lay the extravagance at. 
Any thing like that Avoman — IIoAvever, it is 
unavailing to dilate upon that. But when all is 
done, there Avill be a small — a small annuity re- 
maining, Avhich Avill suffice to maintain Frost in 
comfort at some of those southern places. Ah, 
bless my soul, what a superior man he AA'as Avhen 
I first kneAv him !” 

Mr. LoA'egrove did not say that the “small 
annuity” Avas to come entirely out of his own 
pocket, and that its amount caused him sundry 
twinges of conscience when he looked at his Avife 
and children. 

“Well, Mr. Lovegrove, I hope that one of the 
first transactions of the new firm Avill be to draw 
up my marriage settlement. And I shall ask 
you to continue to look after Maud’s interests. 
Perhaps Captain SheardoAvn Avill be the other 
trustee ?” 

“I shall be delighted. You intend to have 
Miss Desmond’s little bit of money settled en- 
tirely on herself?” 

“To be sure I do! I Avon’t detain you any 
longer. Your time is precious, and I suppose 
you can guess in Avhich direction my steps are to 
be bent. I long to see Maudie’s face flush and 
brighten Avhen I tell her my neAvs. Good-by.” 

Maud’s face did flush and brighten in a man- 
ner Avhich may be supposed to have been satis- 
factory to her lover. But it also expressed much 
pity for Mr. Frost Avhen she heard his story. 

Hugh merely informed her that Mr. Frost had 


VERONICA. 


1G7 


at length paid an old debt that had been due to 
his (Hugh’s) father ; and that having entertained 
but slender hopes of ever receiving the monej', 
he had deemed it best to say nothing about it to 
her, lest she might suffer disappointment. 

‘ ‘ Oh, poor, poor man ! How dreadful to be 
deserted by his own wife ! The very one person 
in all the world he might have hoped to rely on 
for comfort and sympathy in his troubles. I have 
seen her. She is a very beautiful woman. But, 
oh how cruel and heartless she must be!” 

“ Let it be a warning to you not to suffer your 
affections to be engrossed by millinery, and to 
keep your husband in the first place in your 
heart, Mrs. Hugh Lockwood ! ” 

The Sheardowns were scarcely less delighted 
than Hugh himself. The captain insisted that 
the wedding should take place from Lowater 
House. 

“But ought I not — don’t you think — what 
will Uncle Charles say?” Maud asked, hesita- 
tingly. 

“Do you think, my dearest, that your guard- 
ian will be hurt if you are not married from his 
roof?” 

“ I — I’m afraid so,” said Maud. 

“ Well, I will write and ask his permission to 
let it be from Lowater,” said the captain. 

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Sheardown, thought- 
fully, “it would be best, after all, for Maud to 
be married in London, if she will, and go down 
to Shipley after the ceremony. Would you con- 
sent to that, Maudie ?” 

Maud thought she would consent to that. 

If all had gone differently, she would have 
liked to be married in the ancient village church 
that she had worshiped in from childhood. But 
now there would be too many painful associa- 
tions connected with St. Gildas! She would 
miss Veronica’s face beaming out from its accus- 
tomed corner ; she would miss Veronica’s voice 
in the bridal hymn of the choir. It would call 
up in the vicar’s mind all that was sad and ter- 
rible in his daughter’s fate. No : it would be 
better to be married in town. And, aftq* all, it 
mattered very little to herself. Hugh would be 
there. Hugh would take care of her. Hugh 
would love her. Could any thing matter very 
much as long as she had Hugh? Mrs. Shear- 
down took an opportunity of drawing Hugh aside, 
and explaining to him her reasons for thinking 
that the vicar of Shipley-in-the-Wold would be 
rather relieved than offended by getting rid of 
the spectacle of his ward’s wedding. Meanwhile 
there was much to be done. A letter had to be 
written to the architect whose business Hugh in- 
tended to purchase. A friend in the neighbor- 
hood of Danecester was to be commissioned to 
look out for a house for the young couple. The 
house must have a garden, at any rate, and*, if 
possible, a little stable for a pony and pony-car- 
riage, which Hugh intended to purchase for the 
use of his wife. Though this latter desideratum, 
he observed smilingly, he could build for himself, 
if need were. And there must be a cottage found 
in the neighborhood for Mrs. Lockwood. 

But when he spoke of this to his mother, she 
met him with a request that he would leave that 
part of his arrangements which concerned her in 
abeyance for a while. 

“But, mother darling, why? Surely you 
mean to live near us, don’t you ?” 


“Perhaps not, Hugh. Don’t ask me any 
more at present. I may have something to tell 
you by-and-by. You need not look uneasy. It 
is nothing terrible. I will not deceive you — 
again. ” 

At the end of a fortnight, and when the day 
fixed for the tvedding was near at hand, Zillah 
Lockwood made the confidence she had an- 
nounced to her son. 

“Hugh,” said she, “I have become a Roman 
Catholic. ” 

“ A Roman Catholic! Mother!” 

“Yes: I humbly hope to find peace and for- 
giveness in the bosom of the Church. I shall 
at least be able to make some expiation, and to 
pray for those whom I love. Rome does not re- 
ject the humble pious efforts after goodness of 
the faithful, as your stern Calvinistic creed does. 
I always, when I was a girl in Paris, had a great 
admiration for the good religieuses, and was at- 
tracted by them. The seed of their blessed ex- 
ample has borne fruit in my soul. The price of 
this house, which your father bequeathed to me, 
will suffice to gain me admission into a poor or- 
der whose members devote themselves to the sick 
poor. On the day of your marriage I shall be- 
come a member — an unworthy and humble mem- 
ber — of a pious sisterhood in Belgium. The 
good priest, who has been enlightening my dark 
mind with the comfortable truths of religion, will 
make all the necessary arrangements for me. I 
shall pray fervently for you, my son, and for your 
sweet young wife. And all I ask of you, Hugh, 
is to make me one promise. If ever you feel 
your heart drawn toward the ancient and holy 
Mother Church, do not resist the impulse. It 
may be that it comes from Heaven, in answer to 
the petitions of the earthly mother who bore you.” 

Nor could any expostulations or entreaties 
shake Zillah ’s determination. Hugh was great- 
ly distressed by it. But wise, kind Nelly Shear- 
down consoled and comforted him. 

“My dear Hugh,” she said, “your mother 
will be happier in following this life than in any 
other which you could give her. I do not know 
Mrs. Lockwood’s history;' but she gives me the 
idea of a woman who has suffered much, and 
who is continually tormented by the contentions 
of pride with a very singularly sensitive con- 
science.” 

“You describe my mother with wonderful ac- 
curacv. How could you learn to know her so 
well?” 

“ Well, you know, Maud has talked to me of 
her much. Maud is as clear as crystal, and the 
impression she received of your mother she faith- 
fully transmitted to me. Your mother has been 
accustomed to reign paramount in your affec- 
tions; when you are married, that could, of 
course, no longer be the case. Indeed, it has 
already ceased to be the case. Mrs. Lockwood, 
in living near you, would be continually torment- 
ed by a proud jealousy of Maud’s influence over 
you ; and equally tormented by a conscientious 
sense of the wrongness of such a feeling. In 
her convent, in her care of the sick, and her de- 
votion to good works, she will feel that her life 
is not useless and wasted, and that if even onJg 
by her prayers, still by her prayers she may serve 
you and yours.” 

So Zillali had her way without further opposi- 
tion, and her two children, as she called them. 


168 


VEEOi^ICA. 


were surprised by the air of serenity and cheer- 
fulness which had succeeded to her old repressed 
look ; the expression of one who had indeed re- 
solved to be calm, but who paid a heavy price 
for the carrying out of her resolution. But the 
chief secret of this change in her was, that her 
new creed recommended itself to her notion of 
justice, always throughout her life unsatisfied. 
According to this creed, her sufferings would 
count in her favor. Every prayer, every priva- 
tion, every penance, would be registered to her 
credit in the records of the Great Tribunal. She 
would suffer perhaps — yes ; but she would not 
at least suffer in vain. And this thought con- 
ciliated Zillah’s rebellious soul with the decrees 
of Providence, and in it her weary spirit found 
peace. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LAST PLANK. 

Veronica was more wretched than she had 
ever yet been after the scene in which Cesare 
had asserted his masterhood over her and her 
fortune. She had fancied a week before that 
she could hardly be more unhappy than she then 
was. But she was doomed to taste a yet bitter- 
er cup. It was bitter, with a bitterness at which 
her soul shuddered, to see herself so treated by 
one who had been the slave of her caprices, and 
had sworn that he loved her better than his own 
life. Men were all tyrants ; all base, and fickle, 
and cruel. All, all, all — No, stay ! Did she 
not know one man who was none of these things ? 
One obscure, humble man whom she had dis- 
dained and derided in her old happy days. Hap- 
py days ? Oh yes, how happy, how heavenly, in 
comparison with these ! And she had been dis- 
contented and complaining then ? How could it 
have been? She must have been mad. Why 
had no one taught her, warned her, helped her ? 
Oh, if the past would but come back ! 

“Come back, come back, come back!” she 
cried aloud, with outstretched arms ; and then 
crouched down sobbing and wailing in her misery. 

The thought of Mr. Plew, however, came to 
strengthen an idea that had been vaguely float- 
ing in her mind. What if she could be separa- 
ted from Cesare ! She would give him half her 
fortune — Give him ! Had he not said himself 
tliat all she had was his ? No ; she could give 
him nothing. But might he not consent to some 
arrangement being made ? She did not love him 
now. She detested him, and she feared him. It 
was dreadful so to fear one with whom one lived 
one’s daily life ! She could not appeal to her fa- 
ther. He would do nothing. He would reproach 
her, and would not help her. She doubted even if 
he could. He seemed to have lost all energy. But 
Mr. Plew ! Perhaps ! She would wudte to Mr. 
Plew'. When she had half finished her letter, 
she remembered that his mother was recently 
dead, and that he, too, must be in affliction. 
She tried to say some word of condolence. But 
it w^as flat and unmeaning. She could think of 
no grief, she could feel no sorrow save her owm. 
Would the fact of his mother’s death prevent his 
attending to her letter ? No : surely not. It 
might even leave him freer to serve her. In any 
case she must send the letter. It was her last 
chance. Three days elapsed, and no answer 


came. She had reckoned that she might receive 
an answer on the afternoon of the third day. 
When the time passed, and brought no reply, her 
heart sank woefully. 

“Has he forgotten me?” she thought, and 
clasped her hands together until her sharp rings 
drew blood from the soft flesh. 

But that night — it was nine o’clock, Cesare 
was absent, as he was most evenings except when 
he had company at home, and Veronica, declin- 
ing to accompany him, was at home in solitude 
— that same night there came a gentle ring at 
the bell, and the servant who answered it pres- 
ently came up stairs with an insolent, half-sup- 
pressed smile of amusement on his face, and an- 
nounced “Mr. Plew.” Veronica by a great ef- 
fort sat still on her accustomed sofa until the 
man had disappeared ; but no sooner had he 
closed the door than she rushed to the little sur- 
geon, and almost threw herself into his arms. 

‘ ‘ Oh, God bless you for coming ! I was fret- 
ting that you did not write ; but it is better — 
how much better — that you have come yourself! 
I did not dare to hope that 

The tears gathered in his eyes. That she 
should be so overjoyed to see him! The fact, 
thought hlr. Plew in his unselfishness and hu- 
mility, was more eloquent than words to express 
the utterness of her desolation. 

“Yes, princess — ” 

“ Call me Veronica.” 

“Yes, Veronica. I came, because I could 
speak to you better than I could write. And I 
have much to say.” 

He looked very pale and wobegone in his black 
clothes. 

“I was sorry to hear of your loss,” she said, 
glancing at his mourning garments. 

“Ah, my poor mother! She did not suffer 
much. And I — I did what I could to make her 
life happy.” 

“You have only just arrived. You must 
want food. Let me get you something.” 

“ I do not feel as though I wanted food ; but 
on principle, and to set you a good example, I 
will try to eat something. It is not well to fast 
too long. And if I am knocked up I can’t do 
any good. I must be in possession of what en- 
ergy and faculty I possess.” 

Veronica gave her orders. There was a dif- 
ficulty in executing them. Wine there was, cer- 
tainly, of various kinds ; but as to supper, Ma- 
dame la Princesse did not usually take supper. 
They did not know; they could not say that 
there was any thing provided ! 

“Get some supper, immediately!” said Ve- 
ronica, imperiously. 

Her command was literally obeyed. A non- 
descript subordinate, wlio served the seiwants, 
was dispatched to buy some cooked meat. It 
was sent up on a porcelain dish, flanked by two 
flasks of rare wine, and seiwed with fine damask, 
and silver brave with the foreign-looking showy 
crest of the Barlettis. The village surgeon be- 
gan to perceive that homely comfort and hospi- 
table abundance did not always belong to the 
mansions of princes. In short, that things meant 
for human governance had an obstinate habit of 
declining to “govern themselves!” 

‘ ‘ I’m afraid I have given you a good deal of 
trouble,” said IMr. Plew, meekly. 

“ You see what kind of a banquet it is I am 


VERONICA. 


1G9 


able to set before you,” said Veronica. And 
she added, with a bitter laugh : ‘ ‘ When I used 
to come to your cottage, and have tea with your 
mother, she was able to give me abundance of 
sweet, wholesome, appetizing food. But she was 
a poor widow in a country village. I am a prin- 
cess with a grand retinue ! However, here is 
something that the cottage could not furnish. 
This is good.” And she rapidly poured out two 
goblets full of foaming wine, and drank nearly 
the whole contents of one at a draught. Mr. 
Blew laid down his knife and fork, aghast. 

“ Take care, Veronica ! That is a dangerous 
experiment! You have tasted no food. I’ll be 
sworn, since dinner. And perhaps you ate but 
little at dinner ? Am I not right ?” 

“Quite right. I never eat now. I hate eat- 
ing.” 

“ Good God !” 

“Web — not quite never! Don’t look so. 
You make me laugh, in spite of every thing, to 
see your horror-stricken Yace !” 

But Mr. Blew showed no symptom of joining 
in the laugh. Timid and self-distrustful in most 
things — on his own ground, in matters pertaining 
to his profession, he could be strong and decided 
and resolute enough. What had contributed to 
make him so had been that his praetice lay nei- 
ther among educated persons who could in some 
measure be trusted to understand their own 
maladies, nor among idle, fanciful, imaginary 
invalids, who took to being “delicate” by way 
of amusement, and found life uninteresting until 
they could succeed in-persuading themselves that 
they ran some risk of losing it ; but among the 
lowest ranks of the ignorant poor, who had to be 
cured in spite of themselves. 

“You don’t know what you are doing,” said 
Mr. Blew, gravely ; and, without the least eere- 
mony, he took the flask away from the neigh- 
borhood of Veronica’s hand, and placed it near 
his own. 

“Ha, mio povero Blew,” she said, nodding 
her head at him, “you little know! This will 
have no effect upon me. I am past that.” 

“What do you mean, Veronica?” he said, 
sharply and sternly. “If you are joking, the 
joke is a very bad one. I think you are talking 
without rightly weighing the meaning of what 
you say.” 

“ Ah, per Bacco, it is likely enough. I often 
do! But come, you don’t eat — and you don’t 
drink ! Won’t you try this wine ? It isn’t bad. ” 

“What is it? I am not used to these costly 
vintages. I think I never tasted that kind of 
wine in my life before.” 

“That "which I poured out is sparkling Mo- 
selle. The other is Hock. Which are you for ?” 

“Well— a little of this, I think,” said Mr. 
Blew, filling a small wine-glass full of Hock. 

“ Oh misericordia, don’t pour the Hock into 
that thimble ! The bigger glass— the green glass 
— is meant for the Hock !” 

“Thank you, this will do,” said Mr. Blew, 
sipping the wine gravely. “That effervescent 
stuff I should take to be very heating and un- 
wholesome.” 

Veronica leaned back on her sofa cushions and 
looked at him. He was small, common-look- 
ing, ill dressed, unpolished. His boots were 
thick and clumsy, his hands coarse and un- 
gloved. She saw all this as keenly as she had 


ever seen it. But she saw also that he was good 
and generous and devoted. The only human 
being, she told herself, who was true to her; — 
the only one ! 

“I am so thankful you are come!” she ex- 
claimed. The words broke from her almost in- 
voluntarily. Mr. Blew pushed his plate aside. 
In spite of what he had said, he had scarcely 
touched the food they had set before him. Then 
he drew his chair so as to front her sofa, and sat 
with his knees a little apart, his body leaning 
forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and his 
hands loosely clasped together. It was a famil- 
iar attitude of his. Veronica had seen him sit- 
ting thus a hundred times in the vicarage parlor, 
listening to her father, and looking at herself. 

“Now,” said he, “let us talk seriously.” 

“ You must not oppose my wish ! You must 
not ! I tell you I ean not go on living this life. 
I must part from Cesare. lie will not care ! 
Why should he ? He has the money !” 

As he now saw her, looking at her intently, 
and marking her face, her voice, her attitude, 
he perceived that she was greatly and deplorably 
ehanged. It cut him to the heart to see it. 

“Before we speak of that, Veronica, I had 
best tell you something which I have it in charge 
to tell you. ” 

“7« charge to tell me? It is not about your- 
self, then?” An unreasonable suspicion flashed 
through her mind that he was going to tell her 
he was married — or betrothed. She forgot how 
unlikely his veiy presence there rendered such a 
suspicion : she forgot his mother’s recent death. 
She only thought, “I shall lose him ! He will 
slip through my fingers !” 

Boor, wasted, fevered, clinging fingers, grasp- 
ing with desperate selfishness at the kind true 
hand which offered the only touch of sympathy, 
the only chance of safety that remained to her ! 

“No : it is not about myself. It is news that 
you will, I am afraid, be vexed to hear. Your 
father — is married. ” 

“ Married !” 

“I feared it would be disagreeable to you.” 

“ Married ! But when ? Whom has he mar- 
ried?” 

“ He was married the day before yesterday to 
Farmer Meggitt’s youngest daughter.” 

“ Cissy Meggitt ! Cissy Meggitt ! It is im- 
possible ! Whv, in the first place, Cissv is a 
child.” ' ^ ; 

“She is veiy young, certainly, for the vicar. 
But she is not exactly a c||^d. She is turned 
se veil teen. ” 

“ My father married to Cissy IMeggitt !” 

Veronica repeated the words as though they 
were unintelligible to her. 

“You must not let it afflict you too much. I 
am sorry for it, I confess. But you must hope 
for the best.” 

She remained silent and thoughtful for a few 
minutes, idly plucking at the lace around her 
sleeve. 

“No,” she said, at length. “I need. not be 
afflicted. I don’t know that it makes very much 
difference. In any case my father would not 
have been likely to do much to help me.” 

“ Berhaps not. But I was not contemplating 
the event from that point of view. I was think- 
ing, when I said I was sorry — of him,” ansivered 
]Mr. Blew, gently. 


170 


VERONICA. 


“Ah, yes — yes — very true — of him. I sup- 
pose he will — it will be a bad thing for papa. ” 

INIr. Flew had dreaded an explosion of wrath 
and mortification on Veronica’s part when she 
should learn her father’s marriage. lie knew 
her pride, her social ambition, her notion of her 
father’s superiority by birth and breeding to 
most of those with whom he was brought into 
contact at Shipley. Even at Shipley the vicar’s 
marriage Avas looked upon as a terrible mesalli- 
ance. Every body was offended and disgusted : 
the gentry, that the vicar should have stooped 
so low ; the farmers, that Cissy Meggitt should 
have been raised so high. Mrs. Sack made it a 
text for justifying her secession from orthodoxy, 
and for prophesying the speedy downfall of the 
Establishment. The men wondered what could 
have bewitched rosy-cheeked Cissy Meggitt, a 
Avell-grown lass, as might haA^e had her pick in 
the county, to go and tie herself up to an old 
man like that, and him as poor as a rat into the 
bargain. The Avomen pitied the vicar, that they 
did. He Avas a fool, Avell and good, that they 
didn’t gainsay. But Mrs. Meggitt’s artfulness 
and cunning passed every thing. She’d whee- 
dled the vicar till he didn’t knoAv Avhich end 
of him VAas uppermost. They had thought it 
Avouldn’t never come to good, having a govern- 
ess, and learning to play on the pianny. And 
noAV you saAV, didn’t you ? If the height (a mys- 
terious and oft-reiterated charge) of Mrs. Meg- 
gitt had been onbearable before, Avhat did you 
supp^^it ’ud be noAV ? Though what there Avas 
to boast on, they couldn’t tell. Cissy Avasn’t a 
lady, and Avouldn’t never be made into one, not 
if she married fifty vicars ! 

Mr. Flew had been sent for by the vicar on 
the CA'ening before the Avedding, and had had a 
painful scene Avith him. Mr. Levincourt oscil- 
lated betAveen haughty declarations that he OAved 
an account of his conduct to no man, and that 
he fully believed the step he Avas taking Avould 
be entirely for his happiness, and peevish lament- 
ations over the misconduct of his daughter, Avho 
had left his home desolate and disgraced, and 
thus driA^en him to find sympathy and compan- 
ionship Avhere he could. 

“ Have you informed Ve — the Frincess Bar- 
letti. Sir?” asked Mr. FleAv. 

‘ ‘ Informed her ! No, Sir, I haA'e not informed 
her. I am not bound to ask my daughter’s per- 
mission to take Avhat step I please. She deserves 
no confidence from me — none AvhateA’er!” 

But presently it l^peared that the vicar very 
much desired that Mr. FleAv should take upon 
himself the task of communicating the neAvs to 
Veronica. 

“ I promised to Avrite to you,” said Mr. FleAv, 
finishing his recital, in Avhich he had softened all 
the points that Avere likeliest to give her pain. 
“ But then cam.e your letter, and I — I made up 
my mind to come. Mr. BroAvn, of Shipley Mag- 
na, promised to look after my patients for a day 
or tAA’o. And — there is no one else to miss me. ” 

“ Then,” said Veronica, raising her eyes, and 
coming out of a black reverie in Avhich hlr. 
FleAv’s Avords had but faintly reached her con- 
sciousness, “I am quite alone in the Avorld 
noAv !” 

“ Don’t say Jhat ! Don’t say that, Veronica ! 
Your husband — ” 

“ My husband !” 


The accent Avith Avhich she uttered the Avords 
Avas so heart-breaking in its utter hopeless bittei- 
ness, that Mr. FleAv Avas silent for a moment. 
What could he oppose to that despair? But he 
presently made a braA’e effbrt to speak again. 

“ Yes, Veronica, your husband ! If I cared 
less for you I should not have the courage to op- 
pose you. But I must tell you, I must urge you 
to consider Avell that your husband is your natu- 
ral friend and protector. No one can come be- 
tAveen you and him. It can not be that recon- 
ciliation betAA'een you is hopeless. You are 
both young. He loves you. He seemed gentle 
Hand—” 

She burst out into a storm of passionate tears. 

“Oh, Avhat shall I do? AA’hat shall I do? No 
one Avill belieA^e me! no one Avill understand! 
Did you read my letter ? I ask, did you read 
it ? Gentle ! yes, he is very gentle ! Oh, very, 
very gentle! As velvet-footed as a tiger-cat! 
Would you like to see the mark of his claAvs ?” 

With a sudden fiercemiovement she tore open 
the long lace sleeve that she AA^ore, and bared her 
arm to the shoulder. Thei'e AA^ere on the Avhite, 
tender flesh tAvo livid marks made by the brutal 
pressure of a clasping hand. 

“ Good God ! you did not say — you did not 
tell me that he struck you !” 

Mr. FleAv’s Avhite face greAV livid, and then 
turned crimson. He clenched his hand involun- 
tarily. 

“Oh no! He did not strike me! He mere- 
ly held me doAvn in my chair Avith gentle vio- 
lence, endeavoring to make me promise to re- 
ceh'e a woman Avhom he desired to invite, and 
Avho had openly insulted me. I cried out Avith 
the pain, but I Avould not promise. I said he 
might kill me first.” 

“Oh, my good HeaA’ens, this is dreadful!” 

“I should not have escaped so easily — and 
perhaps I might have given AA'ay, for he hurt me, 
and I dread pain, I never could bear pain — 
and — and I am afraid of him. Oh, you don’t 
knoAv Avhat deadly fear I am in sometimes ! But 
a seiwant came into the room by chance, and I 
ran aAvay and locked myself up.” 

“ But — but he Avas sorry — he asked your par- 
don — Avhat a damned coAvardly brute the felloAV 
must be!” cried Mr. FleAA', suddenly breaking 
doAvn in his efforts to preach patience to Ve- 
ronica. 

“When I shoAved him the marks next day, 
he said I had provoked him by my obstinacy, 
and that if I had had an English husband he 
Avould have beaten me Avithin an inch of my life 
for my disobedience. ” 

Mr. FIcav got up and Avalked about the room, 
Aviping his hot forehead Avith his handkerchief. 

Fresently he came back to the sofa. His eyes 
Avere full of tears. He took her hand in one of 
his, and placed his other hand on her head. 

“Foor child!” he said. “ Foor, unhappy 
child ! Veronica, I Avould lay doAvn my life to 
bring you comfort. ” 

As he so stood looking at her Avith a tender 
compassion thatAA'as almost sublime in its purity 
from any alloy of self, the door aa’us opened quickly 
and quietly, and Cesare de’ Barletti stood in the 
room. 


VERONICA. 


171 


CHAPTER XV. 

INFELICE. 

Cesare advanced into the room silently, with 
his eyes fixed on his wife. He was very pale, 
and his hand plucked at his mustache with the 
lithe, serpentine motion of the fingers that was 
so suggestive of cruelty. Veronica, when she 
saw him, started violently, and dropped Plew’s 
hand. The surgeon stood firm and still, and 
looked at Cesare quietly, neither apprehensive 
nor defiant. For some seconds no one spoke. 
The room was as still as death. Cesare’s eyes 
quitted his wife’s face, and wandered round the 
boudoir, looking more than ever like the inscru- 
table eyes in a picture on which you can not get 
a good light. This- glance took in every detail 
of the scene. The preparations for supper, the 
half-emptied flasks of wine ; above all, his wife’s 
torn sleeve, and the wasted arm with its livid 
bruises. Then he spoke. 

“ Mille sense! I intrude. No wonder you 
preferred to stay at home, cara gioja ! But why 
did you not tell me that you expected a guest ? 
Ha ! Quite a carouse — a banquet ! Per Dio ! 
It is diverting ! Like a scene in a comedy. It is 
complete ! Lelioand Rosaura — and the husband I ” 

He spoke in Italian, and with an insolent, 
mocking bitterness of irony, which perhaps only 
an Italian can attain. Veronica did not speak. 
She sat still, with parted lips and dilated eyes, 
and her heart beat with such suffocating rapid- 
ity that she panted for breath as she sat. Sud- 
denly Barletti turned to Blew, and addressed 
him in English, with a total change of tone. 

“What do you here ?” he asked, abruptly. 

“I came here. Prince Barletti, because — ” 
He saw id Veronica’s face a mute appeal to con- 
ceal the fact that she had sent for him. “ Be- 
cause I happened to be in town, and thought 
that, for old acquaintance sake, I might venture 
to call on your wife. I am sorry to perceive 
by your manner — an unnecessarily discourteous 
manner, you will allow me to say, toward one 
whom you consider your inferior — that my visit 
is distasteful to you.” 

“Distasteful! Come? How can you think 
it? Come, come? How distasteful? Schiavo 
suo ! I am your slave. ” 

‘ ‘ I think, Cesare, you — might — be — decently 
civil — if not kind — to an old friend of mine — 
whom — I — so — value,” gasped out Veronica, 
with her hand pressed to her side to restrain the 
painful beating of her heart. 

“Angelo mio diletto ! I have a great defect. 
I confess it with much penance. I am not of 
those husbands — those amiable and dear hus- 
bands — who are kind to the old and valued friend 
of their wife ! Che vuoi ? I am made so. Son 
fatto cost." 

“You are mad, Cesare!” 

“Not at all. Ah no! I have the disgrazia 
— the disgrace — to be in my sound mind. I 
have a memory — oh ! so good memor}^ Did I 
tell you of my antipathy — another defect — I am 
full of them — for a certain person ? And did I 
say that I like him not to come in my house ?’’ 

All this while Cesare was standing, with fold- 
ed arms, on the opposite side of the table to his 
wife and Plew. The latter left his position near 
Veronica, and advanced toward Barletti, still, 
however, keeping the table between them. 


“I shall not trust myself to say what I think 
of your conduct, ” said the little surgeon. “How 
you treat me matters little — ” 

“It matters nothing. You are right. It 
matters not that!” returned Barletti, snapping 
his fingers close to the surgeon’s face. The lat- 
ter stood like a rock. 

“You had better take care,” said he, quietly. 
“You might chance to touch me if you did that 
again.” 

“And if so ? Even if so, eh ? Maledetta ca- 
naglia che tu sei!” 

Plew did not understand the words, but the 
look and tone that accompanied them were intel- 
ligible enough. He colored high, but spoke still 
in the same quiet manner, that in its unaffected 
manliness had a certain dignity. 

“You have told your wife in my presence 
that you had an antipathy to me — why, Heaven 
knows! — and that you had desired never to see 
me in your house. Even had I known this, I 
do not think it would have prevented me from 
coming — ” 

“Without doubt! Oh, without doubt! He 
is pleasant, this buffbne !” 

“But I did not know it. And my errand 
here to-night was — partly — to deliver a message 
to your wife from her father.” 

“You lie!” 

“ Cesare ! Per pieta !” cried Veronica, rising 
and holding up her hands as though to shut out 
the words from the surgeon’s ears. 

“Don’t be afraid, Veronica,” said Plei^Kvith 
a quivering lip. “I am not a child, to be car- 
ried away into passion by a vile, vulgar insult 
from one whom I despise.” 

“Be silent, then!” cried Cesare, turning on 
her with savage fury. He spoke now in his own 
language, and poured out a torrent of opprobri- 
ous taunts and invectives with the volubility of 
an angry lazarone. 

He was jealous of Mr. Plew. Wild and in- 
credible as the idea appeared to Veronica, it nev- 
ertheless was so. Some jesting word dropped by 
the vicar about Mr. Plew’s old adoration for his 
daughter had first attracted his attention to the 
behavior of Veronica toward this man. He had 
been stmek by the unexampled fact of her taking 
the trouble to write letters to him from Shipley 
Magna. He had more than once told Veronica, 
as the reader knows, that the village surgeon 
was, as he phrased it, antipatico to him. Still 
she persisted in communicating with him. Ce- 
sare had watched the posting of her letters. 
Why should she care to write to Mr. Plew? 
Friendship ? Bah ! He was not a fool. What 
friendship could there be between a beautiful, 
brilliant young woman like his wife and a man 
who, however unattractive he might be in Ce- 
sare’s eyes, was still far from old, and, moreover, 
had loved Veronica in years gone by ? Che, che ! 
If she did not love him, she allowed him to make 
love to her. Cesare’s jealousy was alert and fu- 
rious at the thought. Then one night he comes 
home unexpectedly, and finds this man with his 
wife — with his wife, who had refused to go out 
with him in spite of his urgent request to her to 
do so. She had been complaining of him, too, 
to this accursed doctor. Did he not see the torn 
sleeve, the uncovered arm? There was no re- 
proach that could lacerate a woman’s feelings 
that he did not heap on her in his fury. 


172 


VERONICA. 


“Oh, merciful Heaven I” she cried, pressing 
her 'hands to her throbbing temples, “this is 
more than I can bear. Listen, Cesare. Since 
you are possessed with this insanity — yes, insan- 
ity ! I would say so with my dying breath — I will 
tell you now tlie truth. I can not remain with 
you. I have made up my mind to separate from 
you, and to live apart. You may have all the 
money — all the wicked, weary money ; give me 
only enough to live on, and let me go. I am 
broken and crushed. I only want peace.” 

“You hear the Signora Principessa !” said Ce- 
sare, resuming for a moment his mocking sneer. 
“You hear her! Can not you, you valued 
friend, persuade her to be wise? I am her hus- 
band. Ah, I know your English law I I am 
master, slie is slave. Can not you advise her ? 
But I fear you are not yourself very wise ! You 
give her wine. See, here is the fiasco nearly 
void. Do you not know that she has too great 
penchant for the wine, la nostra cara principessa ? 
Or did you perhaps teach her to love it, like the 
rest of the Inglesi ?” 

“You are more base and contemptible than 1 
could have believed it possible for a man to be. 
I shall not remain longer beneath your roof. 
But I would have you know, and to understand, 
and to lay to heart, that this lady is not without 
friends and protectors, and that the Englisli law, 
which 3 'ou profess to know so well, does not per- 
mit you to treat her with the gross brutality to 
which I can bear witness.” 

“Giuro a Dio!” cried Cesare, in a transport 
of fury. “This to me — to me! Vozi are per- 
haps her protector — cane maledetto!” 

“Don’t go!” screamed Veronica, clinging to 
the surgeon’s arm, and cowering away from her 
husband. “He will kill me when you are 
gone !” 

With a tremendous oath, Cesare seized a knife 
from the table, and made a thrust at the sur-"' 
geon. At the same instant Veronica threw her- 
self between the two men, and the knife, glan- 
cing off Plew’s thick coat, was plunged into her 
side. 

“ O God ! Veronica !” cried the surgeon, sup- 
porting her in his arms, and, as her weight sank, 
kneeling down upon the ground, and resting her 
head on his knee. “ Oh, my beloved !” 

Cesare stood transfixed and motionless, look- 
ing at the fiowing blood, the dark, disheveled 
hair that covered the surgeon’s knee, the white 
face of his hapless wife. 

“Get assistance! Call for help! You have 
murdered her. Veronica! Veronica!” 

“ Is— is she dead ?” said Cesare. Then, with- 
out waiting for a reply, he rushed out of the room 
with a rapid, noiseless step, descended the stairs 
with headlong vehemence, and was gone. The 
surgeon's cries presently brought up a crotvd of 
scared servants, most of them heated and fius- 
tered with a revel they had been holding in their 
own domain, and which had prevented their hear- 
ing Cesare rush down the stairs and from the 
house. There was a chorus of exclamations — a 
confused Babel of voices. Some of the women 
screamed murder. 

“Be quiet, for God’s sake! Help me to lay 
her on the couch.” 

He had stanched the blood as well as he could, 
but it still fiowed, and as they lifted her to place 
her on the couch it broke forth afresh, and left a 


ghastly trail that marked their path across the 
gayly-fiowered carpet. 

“Go for a doctor instantly! Go you !” said 
Mr. Blew, singling out one man who looked less 
scared and more self-possessed than the others. 
He was a groom, and had not long been in the 
prince’s service. 

“ I am a medical man myself,” said Mr. Flew, 
“ but I must have assistance.” 

The man set off', promising to make good 
speed. Several doctors lived within a short dis- 
tance of the house. He would not return with- 
out some one. Mr. Flew then asked for water 
and linen, and sending the other men away, he 
made two of the Avomen assist him to do what 
could be done, The\' laid a white sheet over 
her, and put pillows and cushions beneath her 
head. In a few minutes, as he hung over her 
with an agonized face, she opened her e^^es. 

“Lord be merciful! She’s alive!” cried one 
of the women. 

Mr. Flew checked her by putting his hand 
OA’er her mouth. 

“Be quiet. It’s a matter of life and death 
that you should be quiet. Veronica,” he added, 
putting his lips near to her ear, and speaking 
very softly. ‘ ‘ Do you know me ?” 

She formed the Avord “3’es,” Avith her colorless 
lips. Then her eyes languidly Avandered about 
the room as though in search of some one. Then 
for the first time Mr. FleAv remarked Cesare's 
absence. He had hitherto had eyes and ears 
only for her. 

“Where is — your master?” he asked of one 
of the Avomen, interpreting Veronica’s look. 

“ Master ? Master ? I don’t knoAv ! Did he 
come in ?” 

“Yes, yes; he Avas here. He Avas'here just 
noAv. ” 

“ Then,” cried one of the Avomen, clasping her 
hands, “ AA’as it he that done it?” 

Veronica made a A'iolent effort to speak. “It 
Avas not all his fault,” she gasped. “I — fell — ■ 
on — the knife.” 

The exertion Avas too great for her, and she 
SAVooned again. In a feAv moments the groom 
returned, bringing Avidi him the doctor and a 
policeman. 


CHAFTER XVI. 

THE END. 

“There is not the least hope. You had bet- 
ter send for her friends at once. Are they in 
London ? She can not last many hours.” 

The sickly gray daAvn was creeping in at the 
AvindoAvs of the room Avhere Mr. FleAv had Avatch- 
ed all night b}’- the side of the dying girl. Dy- 
ing? Ah yes, too surely. Before his colleague’s 
verdict had been uttered IMr. FleAv had knoAvn 
full Avell, although he had striven against the 
knoAvledge, that it Avas beyond mortal skill to 
save her. The light of a shaded lamp struggled 
Avith the daAvn. They had not dared to remoA'e 
Veronica from the couch on Avhich she had been 
placed at first. The growing daylight gradually 
reA’ealed more and more of the horrible aspect 
of the chamber. The contrast of its gaudy rich- 
ness and bright gilding Avith the awful stains that 
ran along the floor, and Avith the ghastly Avhite- 
ness of the covering that concealed the helpless 


VERONICA. 


form on the sofa, and with the livid face and for- 
lorn, disheveled hair tossed Avildly around it, was 
horrible. 

They had cut the hair off roughly here and 
there, in jagged ends, to keep it from distressing 
her by its long abundance. Both the doctors 
had at first concurred in thinking that there 
might be some hope. When it was desired to 
take her deposition, the medical men had said 
that to disturb her Avith questions Avould be at 
that moment infallibly to kill her. With a little 
quiet and patience, she might be able by-and-by 
to speak. 

hleanAvhile search was being made for her 
guilty husband, Avho, it Avas clear, had fled from 
the consequences of his crime. But, after a fcAv 
hours, a violent feA^er set in. From that moment 
Mr. PleAv kneAv that she Avas doomed. She had 
been delirious all night, and had asked constant- 
ly for Avater, Avater, Avater. But she spoke chiefly 
in Italian. Her faithful, loving friend had Avatch- 
ed by her through the long night of agony, such 
as breaks the heart and blanches the head. Then, 
Avith the first gray of morning, came the Avords 
that head this chapter : 

“There is no hope.” 

Her father had been telegraphed for, but it 
Avas scarcely possible that she should survive to 
see him, let him make the utmost speed he could. 

After the long night of pain, fcA^er, and delir- 
ium, the first rays of morning found the sufferer 
sleeping. It seemed not, indeed, so much a 
sleep as a lethargy that Aveighed on her eyelids, 
surrounded by a liAud violet circle that made the 
pallor of her cheeks and broAV startling. 

“Has any neAvs been heard of the man — the 
Prince Cesare ?” asked the London physician, in 
a loAv voice, of Mr. PleAv. The former had not 
passed the Avhole night by Veronica’s couch, as 
her old friend had done. He had contented 
himself Avith sending a nurse, and promising to 
come again in the early morning. This promise 
he had kept. Mr. PleAv shook his head in an- 
swer to the physician’s question. 

“I hope they’ll catch the A'illain,” said the 
jjhysician. 

Mr. PleAv at that moment had no thought or 
care for Cesare’s punishment. His Avhole soul 
seemed to hang upon the prostrate form from 
Avliich the life AA'as ebbing Avith eA^ery breath. 

“The magistrate Avill be here by-and-by,” said 
the doctor. 

“ She must not be disturbed !” said Mr. PleAV. 
“ She must not be tortured.” 

The physician slightly shrugged his shoulders, 
and looked at the sleeper AAUth a cool compassion 
in his face. “They must not delay very long, 
if they Avant to see her aliA'e. The end is near,” 
said he. 

Mr. PleAV remained perfectly still, Avatching 
her face, from Avhich he did not AvithdraAV his 
eyes for a moment, even in addressing the other 
man. His hands Avere folded together on his 
breast. In his heart he Avas praying that she 
might regain consciousness, and recognize him, 
before the end. 

“O Lord, may this grace be vouchsafed to 
me!” 

So ran his prayer. 

Mr. PleAV Avas not unskilled in his OAvn science, 
and he did not pray for her recovery. That, 
thought he, AA'Ould be a miracle. A man can 


' 373 

not hope for a miracle. It did not occur to him 
that any special ansAver to special prayer must be 
miraculous. The human heart is complex and 
illogical, and deduces many contradictory infer- 
ences from the simplest premise. Half an hour 
passed. Then there came a ring at the door, 
Avhich sounded Avith painful metallic vibrations 
through the hushed house. 

“I Avill go doAvn and see them,” said the phy- 
sician, divining Avho the early visitors must be, 
and not sorry to leaA^e a scene in Avhich he could 
be of no use. 

“She must not be disturbed,” said Mr. PIcaa’, 
still Avithout moving or changing the fixed direc- 
tion of his glance. The other nodded, and 
noiselessly left the room. The hired nurse sat, 
Avith closed eyes, in a chair in a distant corner 
of the room. She Avas not fully asleep ; but she 
took a measure of repose in the half-Avaking fash- 
ion rendered familiar by her aA'oeations. There 
AA^as a muffled sound of feet beloAV ; the closing 
of a door — then all AA'as still. 

Suddenly the surgeon’s -gaze, instead of look- 
ing on closed, violet-tinted eyelids, Avith their 
heavy black fringe, met a pair of Avide-open, hag- 
gard eyes, that looked strange, but not Avild: 
there Avas speculation in them. 

“Mr. Plew!” 

The Avhispered sound of his OAvn uncouth name 
Avas like music in his ears. All the night she 
had been calling on Cesare, begging him to save 
her from that other ; imploring him to giA’e her 
a drink of Avater ; appointing an hour for him to 
meet her in the Villa Reale ; alAA'ays associating 
him Avith some terror or trouble. She had spok- 
en in Italian ; but her husband’s name, and 
one or tAvo other Avords, had sufficed to give the 
Avatcher an idea of the images that filled her poor 
feA'ered brain. 

‘ ‘ My dearest, ” he ansAvered. 

She feebly moved her hand, and he took it in 
his OAvn. She closed her eyes for a moment, as 
though to signify that that Avas Avhat she had de- 
sired him to do. 

Then she opened her CA'es again, and looking 
at him Avith a terrible, Avide stare, Avhispered, 
“Shall I die?” 

His heart Avas Avrung Avith a bitter agony as 
he saAV her plaintive, pleading face, full of the 
vague terror of a frightened child. He pressed 
her hand gently, and stroked the matted hair 
from her forehead. He tried to speak comfort 
to her. But it Avas in A'ain. He could not tell 
her a lie. 

“Don’t let me die ! I am A’ery young. Cant 
I get better ? Oh, can’t I get better ? I am so 
afraid ! Keep me Avith you. Hold my hand. 
Don’t let me die I” 

‘ ‘ V eronica ! My only love ! Be calm ! Have 
pity on me. ” 

“Oh, but I am afraid. It is so dreadful to — 
to — die I” 

Slie hid her face against his hand, and moan- 
ed and murmured a little incoherently. 

“ Our Father, have mercy upon her !” sobbed 
the surgeon. Even as he sobbed he Avas careful 
to suppress the eonAuilsive heaving of his ehest, 
as far as it aa'us in his poAver to command it, lest 
it should shake the hand she clung to. 

Again she moved her head enough to enable 
her to look up at him. “You are good,” she 
said. “You can pray. God Avill hear you. 


174 


VERONICA. 


■Will he ? — will he hear you ? Oh yes, yes ; you 
and Maud. You and Maud — you and — Do 
you see that tombstone in St. Gildas’s grave- 
yard ? I dreamed once that I was going to mar- 
ry you, and he started out from behind the tomb- 
stone to prevent it. That was a dream. But 
the tombstone is there : white, all w^hite on the 
turf. Don’t you see it?” 

“ Veronica ! Do you hear me ?” 

“Yes — Mi\ Flew. Poor Mr. Flew! He 
loved me. "Was it you?” 

“ I loved you. I loA^e you. Listen ! Do 
you think you can pray ?” 

“0-h-h-h! I’m afraid! But if you say — if 
you say it — I will try.” 

He uttered a short prayer. 

“ Do you forgive all those w^ho have done you 
wrong ?” 

“Forgive! I am very sorry. I am sorry. 
I hope they will forgive me. Yes : I forgive.” 

“ My darling, let me kiss you. You are not 
in pain ?” 

“N-no. It is so dark now! That old yew- 
tree shades the window too much. But we shall 
go away where there is more light, sha’n’t we ? 
We won’t stay here.” 

“We w'ill go where there is more light, my 
treasure. Lean your dear head on my arm, be- 
loved. So. You are not frightened now ?” 

“ Not frightened now ; tired — so tired ! How 
dark the yew-tree makes the window’ ! Ah !” 

She gave a long, quivering sigh, and dropped 
her head quite down upon his hand. 

When they came to see if the suflFerer could be 
spoken to, they found him standing, rigid, with 
her fingers clasped in his. He raised his hand 
to w’arn them to be silent as they entered. 

“ She must not be disturbed!” he whispered. 

“Disturbed !” echoed the physician, advancing 
hastily. “ She w'ill never be disturbed more. 
My dear Sir, you must compose yourself. I feel 
for your grief. You w'ere evidently much at- 
tached to the unfortunate lady. But there is no 
more to be done — she is dead ! ” 

He He ^ 

Several years later there arrived in Leghorn, 
from the United States, an Italian — a Sicilian he 
called himself — who was supposed by those who 
understood such matters to be mixed up with 
certain political movements, of a republican tend- 
ency, in the South. He was an agent of Mazzi- 
ni, said one. He w'as a rich adventurer, wLo 
had been a filibuster, said another. He was a 
mere chevalier d’industrie, declared a third, and 
the speaker remembered his face in more than 
one capital of Europe. Doubtless he had been 
attracted to the neighborhood of Florence by its 
recent elevation to the rank of a metropolis. Or 
it might be that he had made New York too hot 
to hold him. 

One night there was a disturbance at a low 
cafd in Leghorn, near the port, frequented chief- 
ly by Greek sailors. A man was stabbed to the 
heart, and his assassin, a certain Greek of in- 
famous character, named Folyopolis, w’as con- 
demned to the galleys for life. 

Of the murdered man little was know’n. The 
landlord of the cafe deposed that he had entered 
his house together with the Greek, the latter 
seeming more boastfully insolent .and elated than 
was his wont ; that he (the landlord), perceiving 


that the stranger was of a different class to .the 
generality of his customers, w'as induced by cu- 
riosity to pay some attention to his conversation 
(in other words, to listen at the door of the mis- 
erable room occupied by the Greek) ; that he 
had heard the two men quarreling, and the Greek 
especially insisting on a large sum of money, re- 
iterating over and over again that tw^enty thou- 
sand francs was a cheap price to let him off at. 
He supposed there had been a struggle, for he 
had soon heard a scuffling noise, and the voice 
of Folyopolis crying out that he should not serve 
him as he had served his wife ! He had got as- 
sistance, and broken open the door. The stran- 
ger was dead : stabbed to the heart. Che vuole ? 
Fazienza! Folyopolis had tried to escape by 
the window, but was too great a coward to jump. 
So they caught him. That was all he knew. 
Ecco! 

The murdered man was known in Leghorn as 
Cesare Cesarini. But there w^as more than one 
distinguished noble who could have given a dif- 
ferent name to him. But they never thought of 
doing so. The man was dead. There had been 
sundry unpleasant circumstances connected with 
his history. And would it not have been ex- 
ceedingly inconvenahle to stir up such disagree- 
able recollections, to the annoy.ance of a really 
illustrious Neapolitan family, who had become 
quite the leaders of society since their influx of 
wealth from the sale of some property to an En- 
glish company that afterward went to smash ? 

Che, che ! let by-gones be by-gones ! 

So Cesare de’ Barletti sleeps in a pauper's 
grave, and his own people know his name no 
more. 

Maud was not told of Veronica’s tragic fate 
until some weeks after her marriage — her hus- 
band feeling that it would cast a deep gloom 
over the early brightness of their wedded life. 
Her grief, when she knew the truth, was sincere 
and intense. And her only consolation was — as 
she often said to the poor surgeon — to know that 
her dear girl had died with his loWng hand in 
hers, and had not been quite lonely and aban- 
doned at the last. 

The vicar’s affliction w’as more demonstrative, 
but briefer, than Maud’s. He soon had troubles 
enough in the present to prevent his brooding 
over the past. His young w’ife speedily discov- 
ered the anomalous nature of her position : not 
received by the gentry, and looked on with cold 
jealousy by those of her own class. She became 
fretful and slatternly, and turned out to have a 
shrewish tongue, and to be energetic in the using 
of it. And her vulgar family established them- 
selves in the vicarage, and lorded it over the 
vicar as only the callousness of vulgarity can. 

Old Joanna left her old master with regret. 
But, as she said, she could not stand being crow- 
ed over by Mrs. Meggitt. The faithful old wo- 
man went to live with Mrs. Hugh Lockwood, 
whose children — especially a bright-eyed little 
girl, named Veronica — she spoiled with supreme 
satisfaction to herself, and under the delusion 
that her discipline was Spartan in its rigor. 

Miss Turtle inherited a trifling legacy from a 
bachelor uncle, who was a tradesman in London ; 
on the strength of which legacy she set up a day- 
school for the children of small shop-keepers, and 
such persons. As she was very gentle, very hon- 
est, and very industrious, she prospered. She 


VERONICA. 


175 


never married ; and she and Mr. Plew continued 
fast friends to the end of their days. 

Of the little surgeon — if these pages have suc- 
ceeded in portraying him as he was — it need not 
be said that his life continued to be one of hum- 
ble usefulness and activity. He was never mer- 
ry, and seldom — to outward observation at least 
— sad. Once a year he made a pilgrimage to 
London, where he visited a lonely tomb in a 


suburban cemetery. But of these visits he never 
spoke. 

And it was observed in him that, while he was 
always kind and gentle to all children, he was 
especially attached to one of Maud’s little girls. 
But he always gave her the uncouth name she 
had bestowed upon herself in her baby efforts to 
talk — Wonca! — and he never called her Ve- 


ronica 


THE END. 



















r ,• |‘ 

. I -• ■ 


v!. v^. •'*^ '■' '^v>/:v.. ;- •■ ■ 

I • •* • V • 1 f ■ ~f 

^ r* w -'V *” ■■' -^•■ 

;■ • T.^’t . - 


i.-V . , 

• 4*, 1 :*• ' <■ 


» I. C. 




'1 ;;:•;■ 
' J X - . ■ * - r ^ • V •« 

St. ‘ ’ :A • - . ' .■ 

.• “V ■ i' ^ ^ ' i * **■' 


>>*.* -i 


■X -S' 


W^-'- ■'■' 



t. • •• . •s^ 

i' • < ■ s • * • . '■.'V * 

^ ^ *7 . : , “ «V*- . • .k’ 




p 




r 'T^h 


t f • , 

. ■ - 


m-'- ^ 




' 'V- 1 a 


‘ -s 


'V- 


st 








'■'U\ 


k 


■•K. 


>•■ 
i'-' / 






i" - 

f' 




1 


«:i 


^ . /4 


m- 




■ \* ‘X* ' ^ 1 


.' *• r 


'■ **t 




V. 


>-fv- « %. 


IS 


v» .. 


J, ’ c ?• » / 


r - ■ »■ ' 

^*. *- •* .'/ 

.’i 


*.>r 


t, % 


i 4 

- U 


■-'rl 

V' 


f 




f 


. 0 • 


~-\ ' 


t a t 





f f 




w 


» 

» • ■ 
( • 




• *« V • 


» \ 


■♦ -m » ar 


-H S 




» ; 




This book may be kept 

FOURTEEN DAYS t 

and may be renewed oncf' 

^rst term expires r>r 
'' for 



-} 


t'-" f 


■'■■ ^ ^'■' ' .' ,/ -t.. \ . • ,'. ^ 


! — 




V 


% • 


% .- 


f 


T " 





■* ' \h 











UBRARY OF CONGRESS 


00023511427 


